Test Cricket Batting Average by Team, 2001–2026

The Pooled Average Has Drifted Down Since 2002

The pooled average is all runs scored by every side in a year divided by all wickets lost that year. It was 35.1 in 2002 and 30.6 in 2025, with a high of 37.8 in 2009 and a low of 27.7 in 2018. A straight line fitted through the 24 full years slopes -2.69 runs per decade and explains 51% of the year-to-year variation; individual years still swing several runs either side of the line.

Splitting the same years in half gives a mean yearly average of 34.7 for 2002–2013 and 31.4 for 2014–2025, a difference of -3.3 runs. Of the 10 sides with at least ten full years of data, 2 have their own average trending upward.

Single team-years swing much more. Among the 142 team-years with at least 100 wickets lost, the best is India in 2016 at 48.68 and the worst is Bangladesh in 2008 at 17.94. Check the wickets column before reading a small season as a trend.

Pooled Batting Average by Year

One point per full calendar year, all sides pooled; the dashed line is the least-squares trend (-2.69 per decade, r² 0.51). 2001 and 2026 are partial years and are left out. Hover a point for the value.

Batting Average by Team and Year

Average = runs / wickets for that team-year. 2001 and 2026 are partial years.

Download the full table (CSV) · 242 rows

How the Numbers Were Made

Source and counting. Every delivery in Cricsheet's men's Test CSV archive (894 matches, 2001-12-19 to 2026-08-30, retrieved 2026-09-13) was grouped by batting side and the calendar year of the match's first day. Runs are runs off the bat plus all extras. A delivery counts as a wicket when a dismissal is recorded; retired hurt and retired not out are not dismissals and are excluded.

The finding. The pooled yearly average is the sum of runs over the sum of wickets for all sides in that year. The trend is an ordinary least-squares line through the 24 full years 2002–2025; the era split compares the mean of the yearly values before and from 2014. Team-year rankings use only rows with at least 100 wickets.

What it does not show. This is a team average, not a player average: a side can raise it by scoring more or by losing fewer wickets. Small team-years (one or two Tests) are volatile.

Afghanistan is missing. Cricsheet withholds all 13 Afghanistan Test matches from its public download, so Afghanistan never appears in this table and any Test involving Afghanistan is absent from every total on this page. Coverage also starts on 2001-12-19, so 2001 is a partial year, and 2026 stops at the retrieval date.

Licence. Cricsheet publishes no formal licence text; its downloads, about and format pages were checked on 2026-09-13 and none exists. The project describes itself as freely available structured cricket data and asks to be credited. The table is republished on that basis, with Cricsheet named as the source, and anyone reusing it under terms that need a clear licence grant should check with Cricsheet first.

Sources

1. Cricsheet men's Test matches, ball-by-ball CSV (tests_male_csv2.zip)primaryCricsheet · primary · retrieved 2026-09-13 · No formal licence stated (checked 2026-09-13); attribute Cricsheet — 894 men's Tests, 2001-12-19 to 2026-08-30; 13 Afghanistan matches withheld from the public download
2. Cricsheet CSV format description (csv_ashwin)secondaryCricsheet · secondary · retrieved 2026-09-13 · No formal licence stated (checked 2026-09-13); attribute Cricsheet — Field definitions used to read the match info and delivery files