From being the sport of English gentry, cricket and the West Indies are synonymous. This is even more so in Trinidad as this is the home of the greatest batsman ever, Brian Charles Lara.It is not certain at what point the game was first played in Trinidad. George RC Harris, 4th Baron Harris (1851- 1932), was the second ever captain of the English team and a born Trinidadian, being the son of colonial governor Lord Harris and Sarah Cummins who was an English Creole born on the island.
In the late 1870s, a group of genteel white men (primarily English) formed the Sovereign Cricket Club. Their pitch was in the people's playground, the Queen's Park Savannah. By the late 1880s the game had become fairly popular and the Sovereigns gave way to the Queen's Park Cricket Club. In 1896, the Club acquired a parcel of land on the old Government Farm which comprised what is modern-day St Clair. The land was leased for 199 years at an annual rent of $1,000. This became the Queen's Park Oval.
This space was soon graded, seeded with turf and an ornate pavilion erected in addition to a ladies' stand (a great concession to gender rights in the rigid Victorian era) as well as a public stand. A cycle track was constructed too.The club came under severe pressure from social activists like Edgar Maresse-Smith who pointed out the obviously exclusionist membership policies. As a result, the first coloured player was admitted in the form of Lebrun Constantine, father of the immortal Sir Learie Constantine.
Financial difficulties plagued the club and the board was forced to seek an $8,500 government bailout in 1909. This loan took 30 years to repay; the organisation was re-incorporated as the Queen's Park Cricket Ground Association. 1930 was the year in which Patsy Hendren, an English cricketer, scored the first test century at the Oval. Those early test matches saw "unofficial" spectators climbing the samaan trees near the ground to catch the action.
In 1952 renovations took place to the old pavilion. Club members participated in football, cycling and hockey. There are indoor facilities too, for snooker and table tennis. In 1966 a children's rally was held at the oval to mark the official visit of Queen Elizabeth II (then still the Head of State) and Prince Phillip. In 1970 the club came under the aegis of the West Indies Cricket Board of Control.
In the lead-up to the Cricket World Cup in 2007, the Oval underwent a remodelling which was estimated to cost over $70 million. The old pavilion was completely demolished and state-of-the art facilities erected. Now expanded, the Oval has seating capacity for over 20,000 persons.
The club has produced many distinguished cricketers including the late Jeffrey Stollmeyer, Gerry Gomez, Deryck Murray and more recently, Justin Guillen. The Queen's Park Oval is considered to be one of the most scenic in the West Indies with the forested hills of the Northern Range as a backdrop.