The shortest completed Test in England in 110 years
England vs South Africa at the Oval was a bowler-dominated Test and here are the numbers to prove it
Sampath Bandarupalli
12-Sep-2022
Ollie Robinson returned with match figures of 7 for 89 on a pacers' paradise • AFP/Getty Images
909 Balls bowled by England and South Africa before the result at The Oval, making it the fourth-shortest completed Test match in England and the shortest there since 1912.
It is also the shortest completed Test to have ever gone into the fifth day. The previous one was the 2001 Hamilton Test between New Zealand and Bangladesh, completed in 1090 balls (excluding the 2000 Centurion Test match where two innings were forfeited).
3 Previous instances of a five-day Test match ending with a result despite no play on the first two days. England's innings win against New Zealand in the 1958 Leeds Test came after the first two days got washed out. New Zealand recorded innings wins in similar fashion twice against Bangladesh - the aforementioned Hamilton Test in 2001 and then at Wellington in 2019.
774 Balls taken to secure all 30 wickets across the first three innings of this match, which is a new Test record beating the 788 balls it took for... the same teams to knock each other out at the same ground in 1912.
28.9 The fast bowlers' strike rate in this match, the third-best in a Test match where they picked up 30-plus wickets behind the 1959 Dhaka Test between Pakistan and West Indies (27.4) and the 2019 Lord's Test between England and Ireland (24.9).
2 Century partnerships for Alex Lees and Zak Crawley in successful fourth-innings chases. They are only the second opening pair with multiple century stands in successful fourth-innings chases in Test cricket. Desmond Haynes and Gordon Greenidge had three such partnerships between them.