Bat First or Bowl First at Wellington? Sky Stadium's T20 Record

Win the toss at Sky Stadium and the instinct is to bowl. Captains have done exactly that in 7 of the last 11 T20 internationals in Wellington with the toss on record. The scoreboard keeps disagreeing: sides batting first have won 64% of those 11 decided matches, and chasing sides 36%.

The Sky Stadium pitch report on Statz reads the last 11 completed T20 games at the ground since February 2018, with one rain-affected match left out of the 12 completed in the records. First innings there average 178.8 runs, second innings 157.0, and the side that won the toss went on to win only 4 of the 11. Below is the record match by match, so you can see where batting first held and where the chase came off.

What the first innings is worth: 178.8 against 157.0

The gap between the innings

Across the 11 matches, sides batting first at Sky Stadium average 178.8 and sides batting second 157.0, a gap of 21.8 runs. The average match produces 335.8 runs, with 16.8 sixes and 25.7 fours, and 60.7% of the runs come in boundaries.

The powerplay tells a slightly different story. Sides setting a target average 50.4 runs in the first six overs, and sides chasing 60.6. Chasers start quicker, but over 20 overs the first innings still finishes almost 22 runs ahead on average.

Highest and lowest totals: 219 and 128

The highest first-innings total in the sample is New Zealand's 219/6 against India on 6 February 2019, which New Zealand won by 80 runs after bowling India out for 139. The lowest is Pakistan's 128/9 on 26 March 2025, a target New Zealand chased in 10 overs to win by 8 wickets.

The 18 November 2022 match against India is the rain-affected one and is left out. The full match-by-match table for the ground has every scorecard, the overs and the boundaries for each game.

Match by match: when did the chase actually work?

The chases that came off

Four chases succeeded. Two were short targets: Australia's 142/8 on 6 March 2021, which New Zealand passed in 15.3 overs, and Pakistan's 128/9 in 2025. The other two were the biggest successful chases in the sample. On 21 February 2024 Australia chased 215/3 with 216/4 in the full 20 overs, and on 27 October 2026 India made 199/4 in 13.2 overs to beat New Zealand's 198/3.

The setters that held

Seven times the side batting first won. New Zealand defended 219/6 against India in 2019, 176/8 against England in 2019 (England all out for 155) and 196/5 against England in 2018. Australia defended 156/6 and 208/4 in the same March 2021 series, the first by 50 runs and the second by 64. South Africa defended 164/5 in March 2026, and India's 165/8 in January 2020 ended in a tie that India won in the one-over eliminator.

So the picture is not that every big target holds. It is that the middle band of totals has held every time, while the chases that came off were either short ones or very big ones. With 11 matches, that is a pattern to note, not a rule.

The 150 to 179 band counts the January 2020 tie as a target not chased down, as the match record does.

Toss-winner record: 4 wins in 11

Bowl-first calls: 7 of 11

Captains winning the toss at Sky Stadium chose to bowl first in 7 of the 11 matches with the toss on record, and to bat first in 4.

Does the toss matter here?

Not in the way captains seem to expect. The side that won the toss won 4 of the 11 matches with a result, 36%, the same share as chasing sides overall. The toss and innings filters on the ground page let you narrow the record by team, competition and day or night if you want to see how a single side has fared.

Pace takes the wickets, spin is cheaper

56% pace, 40% spin

Pace bowlers take 56% of the wickets at Sky Stadium and spinners 40%. The page calls the pitch balanced and also tags it spin friendly, and the economy rates show why.

9.24 against 8.09 runs per over

Pace concedes 9.24 runs an over and spin 8.09. Seamers take more of the wickets but go for more runs; spinners take fewer and are the cheaper option. In the powerplay each innings loses 1.2 wickets on average.

How to use this before a New Zealand T20I at Wellington

Reading the toss in context

The record says a total in the 150 to 179 range has not been chased at Sky Stadium in this sample, and that a captain bowling first has no special edge here. Big targets have fallen, though, including 199 in 13.2 overs this October, so treat the 64% batting-first figure as a tendency, not a rule. New Zealand have played every match in the sample, so the New Zealand team stats are the next place to look.

Where to find the live numbers

The ground page updates after every match at Sky Stadium, and the upcoming cricket fixtures show when Wellington next hosts. For other venues, the other New Zealand grounds are on the grounds index, including Eden Park. If you are building a bet around a Wellington match, the cricket bet builder brings the players' form into it.

Every figure here is from the Wellington average scores and records on Statz at the time of writing.

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