Test Cricket Run Rate per Over by Team, 2001–2026

Scoring Rates Were Flat for Twenty Years, Then Jumped From 2022

The pooled rate is all runs scored by every side in a year divided by all legal balls faced, times six. It was 3.22 in 2002 and 3.50 in 2025, with a low of 2.92 in 2021 and a high of 3.58 in 2024. A straight line through the 24 full years slopes +0.05 runs per over per decade and explains 5% of the year-to-year variation, so there is no steady drift.

The change is concentrated late. The mean of the yearly rates is 3.17 for 2002–2021 and 3.44 for 2022–2025, a rise of 0.27 runs per over. Over 2022–2025 England scored at 4.25 per over against 3.31 for every other side combined, so one team accounts for much of the jump.

Among the 204 team-years with at least 500 overs faced, the fastest is England in 2023 at 4.76 and the slowest is South Africa in 2015 at 2.48. Across the whole period Australia is the fastest side at 3.39 and Zimbabwe the slowest at 2.83.

Pooled Run Rate by Year

One point per full calendar year, all sides pooled; the dashed line is the least-squares trend (+0.05 per decade, r² 0.05). 2001 and 2026 are partial years and are left out. Hover a point for the value.

Run Rate by Team and Year

Run rate = 6 × runs / legal balls. 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. A delivery is legal when it is neither a wide nor a no-ball; runs off illegal deliveries are excluded along with the deliveries themselves, matching the usual over-rate convention. Byes and leg byes off legal balls count.

The finding. The pooled yearly rate is six times the sum of runs over the sum of legal balls 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 for 2002–2021 and 2022–2025. The England comparison pools England's 2022–2025 rows against every other side's rows for the same years.

What it does not show. Each team-year mixes first innings, follow-ons, declarations and fourth-innings chases, which run at different tempos. Team-years with fewer than 500 overs faced can be driven by one unusual innings.

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