Unique Records: One test equal to 22 T20 matches, how many days it lasted, how many overs…, neither past nor future

Longest cricket match: In this era of T20 cricket, tickets for test matches are easily available. The reason is its decreasing popularity and long duration. Many times the matches ended inconclusively even after five days. That is why there are crores of fans of T20 cricket, which is increasing day by day. But would you believe that 85 years from today, a test match was played which was longer than 22 T20 matches. Why only T20, twice as many balls were bowled in that match as the Test played at present. Today we will talk about that longest test match. It is also called the last timeless test match in cricket history. This match lasted 43 hours 16 minutes. A total of 1981 runs were scored in this.

In the year 1939, a historic test match was played in Durban. This match, which started on March 3, continued till March 14, but there was no result. There were two rest days in this 12-day match and one day the play was not played due to bad weather. In the nine-day long England-South Africa match, 680.7 overs were bowled. But wait. This is about those days when there used to be an over of 8 balls. If we convert this into 6 ball overs then it will be called 907.5 overs.

A test match of 450 overs…
Talking about current Test cricket, approximately 450 overs (2700 balls) are played in a match. If necessary, 8 overs can be increased on the last day. That means, more than twice as many overs were bowled in the 1939 South Africa-England match as in the current Test match.

A T20 match of 240 balls…
Now let us compare that historical match with the T20 match. A T20 match is of 240 balls (legal). According to this, 22 T20 matches could have been played in the number of balls bowled in the longest test. Not only this, despite this there would have been 167 balls left i.e. more than one T20 innings.

The historic match ended in a draw
In the longest Test match with 5447 balls, host South Africa scored 530 runs in the first innings and 481 runs in the second innings. England’s first innings was limited to 316 runs. In the last innings he/she had the target of scoring 696 runs to win. While chasing the target, he/she scored 654 runs for 5 wickets. After the end of the ninth day’s play, the match between both the teams ended in a draw. If the England team was not going to miss the plane, this match would have been played the next day also.

tag: cricket records, England vs South Africa, number game, South Africa