A Test match can last five days - and one in 1939 ran twelve
The longest game in cricket history was finally abandoned so the players could catch their ship home.
A Test match is the longest, most prestigious form of cricket. Each side normally bats twice - two innings apiece - and play is spread across up to five days, six hours a day. If neither side finishes in time, the match is simply declared a draw rather than decided on a tiebreaker.
It wasn’t always capped at five days. Some early Tests were “timeless,” played to a finish however long that took. The most famous ran at Durban, South Africa, from 3 to 14 March 1939 - nine days of actual play across twelve calendar days.
England were chasing a huge target and had reached 654 for 5 when the game was abandoned as a draw: the team had to leave to catch the boat home to England.
It remains the longest Test in history, and the last timeless one. Every Test since has had a time limit - which is exactly why five days became the standard.
Sources & references
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