Tied Test Matches: Cricket's Rarest Result
The history of the two tied Test matches in cricket — the 1960 Brisbane Test between Australia and West Indies, and the 1986 Madras Test between India and Australia — and what made them possible.
A tied Test match — where both teams score exactly the same total of runs across their combined four innings — is cricket's rarest result and has occurred only twice in over 140 years and more than 2,500 Tests played. Both occasions produced iconic cricketing moments and are remembered as among the finest matches the game has seen.
The First Tied Test: Brisbane, 1960
Australia vs West Indies at the Gabba, Brisbane, from 9–14 December 1960 produced cricket's first ever tied Test. West Indies were set 233 to win in their second innings and scored 232 all out, with the last wicket falling on the final ball of the match. Captain Frank Worrell, the first Black captain to lead West Indies on tour, and Richie Benaud's Australia played the match in an attacking spirit unusual for the era, and the tie was seen as a triumph for positive cricket.
The Second Tied Test: Madras, 1986
India vs Australia at Chepauk (M.A. Chidambaram Stadium), Madras (now Chennai), from 18–22 September 1986 produced the second tied Test in history. Australia needed 347 to win their second innings and were bowled out for exactly 347. Dean Jones scored a famous 210 on the way to Australia's total, and India's Ravi Shastri anchored both innings. The match ended in chaos as players initially thought Australia had won before the scorers confirmed the tie.
Why Tied Tests Are So Rare
For a Test to tie, the final innings total must precisely match the target. With totals typically in the hundreds across four innings and decimal margins impossible, tying requires an exact alignment of run-scoring, dismissals, and match management that is essentially coincidental. The fact that it has only happened twice across thousands of Tests is a measure of how extreme the coincidence is.
Near-Ties in Test Cricket
Several Tests have been decided by a single run, creating the possibility of a tie if one more run had been scored or prevented. The tightest Test results — one-run victories — occur a handful of times per decade and always produce dramatic final sessions. England's one-run win over Australia at Edgbaston in 2005 and the West Indies' two-run win over Australia in Adelaide in 1951 are among the closest non-tied finishes.
Frequently asked questions
Has any team deliberately tried to achieve a tie rather than win a Test?
No team has been documented as deliberately managing a tie rather than pursuing a win in a Test match. The scenarios in which a tie would be strategically preferable to a loss (and winning was not possible) are theoretically conceivable in the World Test Championship, but the complexity of engineering an exact score makes deliberate tying effectively impossible.
Can you have a tie in Test cricket on a different day than the final day?
Yes, theoretically. If a team is bowled out for a total exactly equal to the cumulative total of the previous innings, a tie would be declared regardless of which day it occurred. However, in practice, ties only occur in the final innings when a team is pursuing a specific target, because only then do the scores inevitably come level before differing.