Test cricket approaches its 150th birthday, its near-century-and-a-half-long existential crisis still burbling and bubbling away, with a strange bill of health. The doctor’s notes, where legible, suggest it is dangerously ill, regenerating, thriving, clinging on the precipice, undiagnosable, and responding well to treatment.
This was a soul-stirring cocktail of modern and old-school Test cricket – strategic grind, T20-enhanced flamboyance, patience, recklessness, collapses, dogged resistance, high-grade skills, technical shortcomings, enrapturing brilliance and befuddling errors. And its fluctuating dramas churned out statistics that, should you find yourself attempting to persuade a friend, family member, passer-by, AI bot, blind date or boss that Test match cricket is in a dynamic state of evolution, would strongly support your argument.
Firstly, South Africa’s come-from-behind victory was the sixth in the 20 three-Test series that have begun this decade. There were also four such victories in the ten series of more than three Tests in the 2020s (plus England’s 3-1 win in South Africa in 2019-20, in which the first Test was played before New Year).
There were only six come-from-behind wins in 116 three-Test series in the 2000s and 2010s combined, and six out of 156 from the birth of Test cricket to the end of the second millennium. There was a flurry of three in fewer than 12 months, beginning with South Africa’s 2-1 win against New Zealand in 1994-95.
In all, one-third of all series of more than two Tests played this decade have had a come-from-behind win. Previously, just 8.2% of such series featured a come-from-behind win. When Ian Botham inspired England to recover from a 1-0 deficit in the 1981 Ashes, it was only the third time any team had won a series from behind since Jim Laker spun Australia to oblivion in 1956.
The near extinction of the drawn Test has helped drive the startling increase in the number of come-from-behind series wins.
Another important factor has been a significant improvement in the performance of away teams in the first matches of series. (Excluding draws, the win:loss ratio of 0.84 wins per defeat has risen considerably from 0.59 in the 2000-2019 period, and 0.47 from 1980 to 1999.)
Using the First Law Of Statistics, which states that you can prove whatever you want if you ask the numbers nicely, you could try to use these figures to prove that the best preparation for touring teams is not to prepare at all. It is perhaps the case that the modern global cricket calendar means that home sides’ players are often equally underprepared, and sometimes even more unready, than tourists. Importantly, when schedulers allow their teams to play more than two matches, Test cricket’s series narratives are more dynamic and less predictable than ever.
(Incidentally, the survival of Test cricket through the 1960s, when nearly half of all Tests were drawn, many of them amidst a level of turgidity and strategic caution that could have been used as a general anaesthetic in all but the most serious medical operations, is one of the game’s more remarkable stories. Were it not for West Indies – the only team to draw under 40% of its Tests in a decade when the world in general was embracing sex, drugs and rock’n’roll – and the belated advent of professional one-day cricket, the sport could quite feasibly have toddled off into well-deserved oblivion whilst a weeping scoreboard displaying 340 for 4 off 150 overs hurled itself into an erupting volcano.)
In the 1960s, were it not for West Indies – the only team to draw under 40% of its Tests – and the belated advent of professional one-day cricket, the sport could quite feasibly have toddled off into well-deserved oblivion
That Test matches lasting 360 overs feel like relative epics is notable in itself. Since 2023, only 16% of Tests have exceeded 360 overs, so to have two in a series is wildly exciting for any cricket lovers who (a) want their sport to distract them from the reality of the real world for as long as possible, and (b) find that the drama and novelty of rapid-action bad-pitch shootouts has decreased with increasing familiarity. (Since 2024, 12 out of 117 Tests have been completed in fewer than 180 overs. There were none whatsoever in the 645 Tests played from 1951 to 1983.)
South Africa’s victory was driven by their proven stars performing on the biggest stage, as well as by players without bulging Test CVs making big impacts at critical moments. Before their series-defining second-innings centuries in Cape Town, Ryan Rickelton and Wiaan Mulder had batted a combined total of 28 times in Tests against other teams in the current top five in the world rankings (India, Australia, England, New Zealand), and failed to make a half-century.
They helped South Africa add to their phenomenal record in final Tests that began with the teams level in the series. This was South Africa’s 11th such game since 2000 (counting only series of at least three matches). They have won seven, drawn two, lost two, comfortably the best record of any team in deciding final Tests this millennium. Australia lie bottom of that particular league table, their equivalent record now standing at played ten, won two, drawn two, lost six. Discuss, with reference to assumed national cricketing stereotypes.
This was a gripping and encouraging series, a shot in the arm for five-day cricket, and a brilliant win for South Africa, whose recovery as a Test force has been one of the great stories in the sport over the last few years, and, I think, a loudly honking endorsement for the flawed but vital World Test Championship.
Andy Zaltzman is a stand-up comedian, a regular on BBC Radio 4, and a writer
