bigfluffylemon wrote: No side has won on test debut since Australia in 1877 (when both Australia and England debuted, so one was probably going to win...)
Different conversation, but it always seems a bit bizarre that test match cricket starts at that point in 1877. It seems teams had played each other for decades, and that game was not at the time considered worthy of being something higher. Seems after the fact, a few years after, they designated it a test.... arguable whether or not it should still be considered thus.
Arthur Crabtree wrote: Timeless Test.
Timeless tests seem to be very poorly documented. Some argue that most tests were timeless (although uncovered pitches lead to not many going into 5th days) up to the second world war, others seem to indicate they do not occur until the Bradman years. There isnt much historical evidence to back up the fact that the early decades were actually timeless, in fact the first tests I believe were literally 3-4 hour days starting in after lunch time and ending in the early evening.
I have seen, and I am hastened to believe this because bat averages in this era are abnormally high, that timeless tests only really occured in the decade before the second world war.
Might go into why Bradman was able to smash so many massive scores.