4th Innings Chases

It's been a banner year for 4th innings chases in Tests. What's going on?

Note: This is a brief note prepared for an upcoming podcast conservation on 81allout.

Eighteen fourth innings targets of 200 or more have been set in Test matches in 2022. Of these, seven - 239, 211, 276, 298, 295, 377 and 341 - have been successfully chased by three different teams. Seven such targets have produced defeats for five different chasing teams. And England, Pakistan and West Indies (twice) have batted out draws.

Given the bowler friendly years Test cricket has been through recently, these are eye-catching figures. The chart below gives a history of fourth innings chases. This is organized in three tables. The top table considers targets from 200 to 249 over consecutive, chronological Test match periods. The middle table considers targets from 250 to 299. The bottom table considers targets of 300 or more.

In the chart below, the year spans in the record seem to be overlapping because the chronology is determined by match numbers. For example the 2008-13 year span shows Tests from 19 Dec 2008 to 3 Sep 2013.

In the Test record, the 1960s and the 2000s have been the two most batting friendly decades since World War II. Unsurprisingly, these are also the decades in which teams chasing 4th innings targets have enjoyed the greatest success. From 2000 to 2013, 15 out of 35 targets in the 200-249 range were successfully chases, while there were only 8 defeats. For targets in the 250-299 range, the first 13 years of the current century brought 13 wins for the chasing side and 11 defeats. And so on. Readers can study the chart at their leisure.

I note a few things found in the record:

• One recent feature has been that first innings scores have recently tended to be lower than they have traditionally been, and the number of overs required on average to complete the first three innings of a Test in which a fourth innings is required is at an all time low across target ranges. This means that wickets are not as worn out by the time the 4th innings comes along.

• 2022 may be the start of a new phase, but its too early to say. The 2000s were a period of sustained success in 4th innings chases. For targets in the 200s (200-299), chasing teams won 24 and lost 14 in the 2000s, compared to 9 wins and 20 defeats in the 1990s and 12 wins and 23 defeats in the 2010s. In the 2020s, the record stands at 7 wins and 5 defeats.

• For targets in excess of 300, there were 6 wins and 58 defeats for chasing teams in the 1990s, 9 wins and 94 defeats in the 2000s, and 7 wins and 142 defeats in the 2010s. In the 2020s, the figure stands a 4 wins and 23 defeats. This could be the beginning of a golden decade for run chases, but its too early to be sure.

• Of the 21 targets of 200 or more which were chased down at a rate of at least 4 runs per over, one came in the 1890s, one in the 1960s, one in the 1980s, two in the 1990s, 6 in the 2000s (from 2000-2006), seven in the 2010s, and 3 in the 2020s. In all, 13 out of these 21 “fast” chases came about between Test match number 1450 (June 1999) and 2120 (February 2014).

fb3 - the number of overs on average required to completed the first three innings of the Test match.

The story of the 4th innings chase is not the story of the ascendancy of bat over ball, or of some transfer of skill from new formats to Test cricket. Rather, it is a measure of the subtle shifts in the behaviour of pitches and ebb and flow of the quality and depth of the bowling.