Run-chases to write home about

In order to win the first Test against Australia in Brisbane, New Zealand had to score the highest total of the match in the fourth innings: the target of 327 was 59 more than the largest score of the game till then. They had performed the feat only a month before, in Chittagong, where they chased 317 - the second highest total was 245 - to beat Bangladesh by three wickets. They couldn't repeat that performance at the Gabba, though, and collapsed for 177. In this week's List we look at run-chases in which the target achieved is the highest total of the game, and those in which the target hasn't been reached despite it being the lowest total of the match.

There are only 18 instances - out of 1894 Tests - in which a team has scored the highest total of the match in the fourth innings to win the game. It happened first in 1906 when South Africa chased a target of 284 against England in Johannesburg, when the previous highest total of the match was only 190. The match had a terrific finish: Dave Nourse scored an unbeaten 93 to lead the hosts to only the second one-wicket victory in Tests.

Apart from the Johannesburg thriller, the table comprises Tests that took place after 1950 and includes some sensational run-chases. Both the highest fourth-innings totals to win Tests - West Indies' 418 for 7 against Australia in Antigua, and India's 406 for 4 in Trinidad - are on the list; West Indies' effort was only one run more than the previous highest total of the Test, while India's was 44 more.

West Indies figure in five more matches on the table, the best of which took place at Lord's in 1984. England had scored 286 in the first innings and declared their second on 300, setting the visitors a target of 342 to get in five and a half hours. Gordon Greendige came out and smashed 214 off 242 balls, and West Indies completed victory in the 67th over. Four years later Greenidge led another successful run-chase - the target of 225 was 20 greater than the next highest score - at The Oval .

Australia's two victories in the table above have featured special innings during the run-chases as well. Neil Harvey's 151 helped them chase 336 in Durban in 1950, despite conceding a first-innings lead of 236, and Mark Waugh's century in 1997 thwarted South Africa by two wickets in Port Elizabeth.

It is relatively more common for teams to lose when chasing a target that is the lowest total of a match - it has happened 36 times. However, there have been only two matches in which a team has been dismissed while chasing a target of less than 100. The first was in 1882 when England collapsed for 77 against Australia at The Oval, but the target of 85 was not the lowest score of the match.

Zimbabwe's target of 99 in their first Test against West Indies in 2000, however, was the lowest total of the Test. The hosts had been bowled out for 187 and 147 and Zimbabwe's first-innings effort of 236 had left them with a task that seemed manageable, but West Indies' four-pronged pace attack, led by Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh, stifled the Zimbabwe batsmen and bowled them out for 63 in 47 overs.

The narrowest margin of defeat for a team when chasing the lowest total of the match is five runs. South Africa had scored 169 and 239 at the SCG in 1994 and Australia, who had made 292 in the first innings were left with a target of only 117. Their chase, however, was wrecked by Fanie de Villiers and Allan Donald and Australia fell short by five runs.