Basin Reserve
Basin Reserve is a cricket ground in Wellington, New Zealand used for staging Test, First- class and One-Day cricket.
Located a couple of kilometres south of what is now the CBD, adjacent to present-day Government House, Wellington College and St Mark's Church and School, the area that is now Basin Reserve was originally a lake (known as the Basin Lake) until an earthquake in 1855 uplifted the area nearly 1.8 metres and turned the lake into a swamp. The swamp was drained and by 1866 Basin Reserve became Wellington's official cricket ground.
The first test match played at the ground was between New Zealand and England on January 24, 1930 and at least one test match has been played at the ground each season since. One Day International cricket was also played at the Basin until 1999 when they moved to the larger crowd capacity Westpac Stadium on the other side of Wellington city.
In addition to cricket, other sports have also used the Basin, including rugby (some historians claim that the first inter-school rugby match in the world was held at the Basin between Nelson College and Wellington College in 1870) and exhibition Australian rules football matches.
One of the incidental quirks of the Basin is that it happens to be the largest traffic island in the Southern hemisphere.
