25-06-2025
Chasing big totals in Tests is easier than ever
The fourth innings of Test matches is where legends are made. The run chase is imbued with a certain mystique: it offers no second chance, but there is always the opportunity for a single player to secure glory off his own bat.
Many of the game's most celebrated knocks were in the final innings. Some historians consider the three greatest of all time to all be in fourth-innings run chases: Brian Lara's 153 against Australia, Kusal Perera's 153 against South Africa and Ben Stokes's 135 against Australia. In each instance, the batsman defied formidable bowling attacks and the weight of history to lead his side to targets of more than 300, winning by one wicket.
Such innings are so celebrated partly because they are so rare. Yet while the mythology of the fourth-innings chase remains, England's magnificent chase at Headingley emphasised that Test cricket is now in a golden age for run chases.
In the history of Test cricket until 2020, chasing sides won just 65 times while chasing at least 250 runs, and lost 164, winning just 28.3 per cent of matches which had a positive result. Since the start of 2020, chasing teams have won 15 times while chasing at least 250, and lost 17 – winning 46.8 per cent of matches that have a positive result.
This phenomenon is best seen in England. Since Ben Stokes became captain before the 2022 summer, England have won six out of nine times when needing at least 250 to win. At home, that soars to an extraordinary six out of seven.
Yet other countries have also completed stunning chases in the 2020s. India hauled down 329 to win at the Gabba in 2021; West Indies made 395, the fifth-highest successful run chase of all time, in Chattogram to beat Bangladesh; Pakistan chased down 342 with four wickets to spare against Sri Lanka in Galle in 2022; New Zealand and Australia respectively chased down over 280 in consecutive Tests in Christchurch, in 2023 and 2024.
Earlier this month, South Africa were set 282 to win the World Test Championship final at Lord's, 70 more than any side had previously made in the match, and got there with five wickets in hand.
South Africa's chase showed a central reason for why sizeable run chases have become more common: Test matches are speeding up. Australia's second innings at Lord's was completed before lunch on day three. Rather than confronting the worst conditions of the match, as has historically been the norm for sides batting in the fourth innings, instead South Africa benefited from the best time in the match to bat. Aiden Markram and Temba Bavuma could trust the bounce at Lord's, without having to contend with the seam movement that Australia had exploited earlier in the Test.
'We'll have a chase,' Ben Stokes said when England last hosted India, at Edgbaston in 2022. He decided to do the same when he won the toss at Headingley on the opening day this year. On both occasions England faced huge fourth-innings targets – 378 and 371 – yet ultimately won with some comfort. These are England's two highest successful chases of all time.
Leeds, with its fast outfield and a pitch that tends to flatten out, is particularly well-suited for such fourth-innings history-making. The last seven Tests at the ground have all been won by the chasing team, including England's Ashes victories in 2019 and 2023.
Stokes's preference for bowling first in England illustrates how the changing character of pitches is inverting conventional wisdom about Test pitches. Rather than becoming more arduous to bat as the match progresses, many wickets today – especially in New Zealand and England – offer early moisture and then flatten out. In the 2020s, the average runs per wicket in England is 36.5. That is the highest of any of the four innings, and a 13-run increase on the 2010s.
One theory for the shift is improvements in modern drainage methods, which have reduced the moisture on the pitch that bowlers can use to extract movement. The growing prevalence of back-to-back Tests, which can render bowlers fatigued when they are being attacked in the fourth innings, might also have contributed to run chases becoming more successful.
Rather than the fourth innings being the hardest to bat, in England the innings to avoid is the third. In the 2020s, the average runs per wicket in the third innings is just 27.4; the figure is 31, 32.5 and 36.3 in the first, second and fourth innings respectively.
The third-innings woes speak to team's struggles to set up the match – often seeming to struggle to locate the right tempo in an age when they need to set higher targets to be secure. While India batted superbly for much of their second innings, they still frittered away their advantage, losing their last six wickets for 31 runs.
Yet for all the uncertainties over how to approach the third innings, teams have never had more clarity about their strategy in the final innings. Historically teams in the fourth innings often had to assess whether to aim for a win or merely a draw. But now, with draws becoming obsolete, there is no such ambiguity.
Instead batsmen can lean upon their experience chasing targets in the limited-overs formats. In both forms of one-day cricket, chasing gives sides a slight but persistent advantage.
Ben Duckett, a supreme white-ball batsman too, was clinical in how he sized up risk on the final day. Just as Stokes himself did at Leeds in 2019, Duckett showed how limited-overs skills – especially his reverse sweep – have made run chases more attainable. Joe Root has steered England home in 19 successful run chases in ODIs; his undefeated 53 was the sixth time that he has been undefeated in a successful Test run chase since 2022.
The manner in which Root and Jamie Smith plundered runs as the target loomed showed the savviness that chasing sides now possess. Bowling sides defending targets above 300 were once guaranteed an extensive period with the second new ball; England won after facing just 12 deliveries of the second new ball.
The upshot is that possibilities in the fourth innings need to be reassessed. For England and beyond, feats long thought outlandish have now come to seem almost ordinary.
