Test Cricket Trivia
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47 free Test Cricket trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Test cricket is the only major sport where a match can last five days and still end without a winner. It began in Melbourne in 1877 before anyone called it a Test, was once played without a time limit at all, and has ended level on exactly two occasions in more than 2,000 matches. It rewards patience from players and from quiz-takers. This set covers the format from its first match to the World Test Championship. You'll be asked which nations hold Test status and when they joined, who scored the first triple century, why a 1939 Test in Durban was abandoned after nine days, which two matches were tied, who took all ten in an innings, and which records belong to Bradman, Lara, Tendulkar, Muralitharan and Anderson. There are questions on the pink ball, the third umpire, the eight-ball over and the Packer years. Easy questions ask how many days a Test lasts; hard ones ask who wrote the first list of Test matches in 1894. Fifty questions, every answer sourced. Take guard.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the result when a Test's five days end before either side has won?
Draw
A draw, however far ahead one side may be. A tie is rarer still, since it needs the scores level with the side batting last all out.
Q 02England and Australia play Test series for which trophy, named after a mock obituary in 1882?
The Ashes
The Ashes took their name from the Sporting Times, which mourned English cricket after a home defeat: 'The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.'
Q 03Which offence cost England 19 World Test Championship points in 2023?
Slow over rates
Slow over rates: a Test day should bring 90 overs, and each over short now costs a point, so England lost 19 across four Tests that summer and Australia 10.
Q 04At which ground was the first recognised Test played in March 1877?
The MCG
The MCG staged it from 15 March, and Charles Bannerman hit Test cricket's first century there, 165, before retiring hurt.
Q 05Which 1977 match repeated the first Test's 45-run result?
Centenary Test
The Centenary Test marked 100 years of Test cricket, and Derek Randall's 174 took England close before they fell 45 short, the very margin of 1877.
Q 06A Test side trailing by 200 runs or more can be made to bat again at once under which rule?
The follow-on
The follow-on lets a captain whose side leads by at least 200 on first innings send the opposition straight back in, saving time in the push for a win.
Q 07Which West Indies fast bowler of the 1970s and 80s was nicknamed 'Whispering Death'?
Michael Holding
Michael Holding got the name for his smooth, silent approach to the crease and the venom of what followed it.
Q 08The first international cricket match, in New York in 1844, pitted the United States against which country?
Canada
Canada won by 23 runs on a third day, after bad weather wiped out the second, and 33 years before the first Test.
Q 09Whose unbeaten 135 won the 2019 Headingley Test against Australia by one wicket?
Ben Stokes
Ben Stokes added 76 for the last wicket with Jack Leach, who made one of them, days after England had been bowled out for 67.
Q 10What did the 'I' in ICC stand for when the body was founded in 1909?
Imperial
Imperial: the Imperial Cricket Conference took only countries within the British Empire, and became the International Cricket Conference in 1965.
Q 11Which opener, who made 774 runs in his debut series in 1971, was the first to 10,000 Test runs?
Sunil Gavaskar
Sunil Gavaskar so dominated that 1971 series in the Caribbean that calypso singer Lord Relator wrote a song in his honour, about the home bowlers failing to get him out.
Q 12What is a lower-order batter called when sent in near the close of play to protect a better one?
A nightwatchman
A nightwatchman is only meant to survive until stumps, yet in 2006 Australia's Jason Gillespie went in as one and made an unbeaten 201, the only Test double century by a nightwatchman.
Q 13In which city was the last timeless Test abandoned in 1939, so that England could catch their ship home?
Durban
Q 21Who lifted the inaugural World Test Championship trophy in June 2021?
New Zealand
New Zealand needed the reserve sixth day in Southampton, then chased 139 to win by eight wickets as time was running out.
Q 22Who beat Australia at Lord's to win the 2025 World Test Championship final?
South Africa
It ended a long wait for a global title for the Proteas.
Q 23Who retook the Test record score in 2004 with an unbeaten 400 against England?
Brian Lara
Brian Lara had lost the record to Matthew Hayden's 380 only months earlier, and became the first man ever to win it back.
Durban saw play spread across twelve days, and England were 654 for 5, only 42 short of their target of 696, when they had to leave.
Q 14Which country became the tenth Test nation in 2000?
Bangladesh
Bangladesh were granted full Test status in June 2000, three years after winning the ICC Trophy for associate nations, and made their debut in Dhaka that November.
Q 15Which two countries were granted Test status together in June 2017?
Ireland and Afghanistan
Ireland and Afghanistan were confirmed as Full Members on 22 June 2017, and when the two met in 2019 Afghanistan won in only their second Test.
Q 16Which Australian media tycoon staged the breakaway 'Supertests' of 1977-79?
Kerry Packer
Kerry Packer signed the world's best players in secret after the Australian board refused his Channel Nine the exclusive TV rights to home Tests.
Q 17Where was the first day/night Test played, in November 2015?
Adelaide Oval
Adelaide Oval staged it from 27 November 2015, after the ICC approved floodlit Tests in a bid to lift crowds and TV ratings.
Q 18What colour ball is used in day/night Tests?
Pink
Pink replaced the traditional red for floodlit Tests. Yellow and orange balls were also tried, but pink proved the preferred option.
Q 19Which side tied a Test with Australia in 1986?
India
India lost their last man lbw with the scores level and one ball left in Madras, and Australia had played in the only other tied Test too, in 1960.
Q 20At which ground was the first tied Test played in December 1960?
The Gabba
The Gabba finish saw three wickets fall in the final over, the last to Joe Solomon's direct hit from square leg with the scores level.
Q 24Matthew Hayden's 380 in 2003, briefly the highest score in Tests, came against which side?
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe won the toss in Perth and chose to bowl first, and Hayden's 380 carried Australia to 735 for 6 declared and an innings win.
Q 25Whose unbeaten 365 in 1958 stood as the highest Test score for 36 years?
Garfield Sobers
Garfield Sobers had never made a Test century before this one, at Sabina Park in Kingston, and the record he set lasted until 1994.
Q 26Who is the leading run-scorer in Test history, with 15,921?
Sachin Tendulkar
Sachin Tendulkar waited more than a year between his ninety-ninth and hundredth international hundreds, and when the hundredth came in March 2012 his side lost the match.
Q 27Who took his 800th Test wicket in his farewell match in 2010?
Muttiah Muralitharan
Muttiah Muralitharan went into that last Test at Galle needing eight wickets, and the eighth was the final wicket of the innings, taken with the last ball he bowled in Tests.
Q 28Who retired in 2007 with a then-record 708 Test wickets?
Shane Warne
Shane Warne's 708 was the most any bowler had taken when he stopped, yet the record was broken before the year was out.
Q 29Who became the first fast bowler to take 700 Test wickets, in March 2024?
James Anderson
James Anderson reached the mark on the last morning of a Test his side then lost by an innings, the end of a 4-1 series defeat.
Q 30Which spinner took 19 of the 20 Australian wickets to fall at Old Trafford in 1956?
Jim Laker
Jim Laker's spin partner Tony Lock bowled one more over than him in that match, on the same pitch, and took a single wicket.