Adelaide Scorebox

Neil Whitaker reports from within

THE Adelaide Oval houses the most iconic scoreboard in world cricket it  isn't computerised but uses wheels, plates and even a peice of string to keep spectators of what’s going on.

Built in 1911 the scoreboard had a clock added to it a year later and has a heritage preservation order on  it.  Situated at the  northern end of the ground the scoreboard is one  of three sites at the Adelaide Oval to have  heritage preservation orders on them.  The others are the mound to the side of the scoreboard and the trees behind the sightscreen.  The guide David Brandon explained: “Before the trees were planted people could see the games for free, hence the preservation order on the trees.”

South Australia cricket club usually has two guided tours daily but in the run-up to a Test match an extra tour is squeezed in at noon.  During  a match the scoreboard is operated on four levels involving five people but the guided tour only covers the first level.

David says: “The first level is the business end of the scoreboard with the total, the batters names, scores and the bowling figures and their names. In between an innings the operators have 10 minutes to change the fielding side into the batting side so everyone has to know what to do and everything has to start with the number five on the batting and bowling side.”

A few years ago after an inspection it was discovered that some of the footings had cracked in two and so supports had to be fitted into the board.

Before a match the umpires are told the order which they must signal to.  If a batter hits a four they turn to the main scorers at the southern end so the scorers in the scoreboard are poised for action.  The umpires then signal to and they signal back  to the umpires. The console operated in the scoreboard is run on valves but  Adelaide there is a shortage of valve shops so if there are no valve shops in Adelaide it may mean the end of the scoreboard.  And it would be a great shame not to see this great scoreboard not being used.

In 114 years the only thing that has changed on the scoreboard is that Batting side 

is now known as Batters and the Bowling side bowlers. David added: “The only thing that’s not  displayed on the board is DLS (Duckworth/Lewis,Stern) but that is  displayed on the electronic scoreboard to its right.”

The total and each batters score are moved on a wheel with  units moved first then in tens if a hundred is needed an  oblong tin with a one on it is placed in its slot. The piece of string is used to move an arrow to identify which bowler is bowling.

During the Test match the one thing that I noticed which was missing was the number of overs that had been bowled.  At the start of the day and at the start of an innings the number of  overs left in a day are displayed but they never change. 

3RD TEST AT ADELAIDE OVAL December 2025