Test cricket's first match was only declared a Test years later
A Test match can last five days and still end in a draw. The format is so long that only some multi-stage cycling races outlast it. Oddly, the famous first Test in Melbourne in 1877 was not called one at the time; a journalist drew up the official list seventeen years later.
The phrase test match first appeared on England's 1861 to 1862 tour of Australia, meaning the visitors were testing themselves against each colony. In early 1877 two rival English tours were proposed, a professional one under James Lillywhite and an amateur one under Fred Grace. Grace's fell through, and Lillywhite's team met a combined Australian side at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in March 1877. Australia won that first game by 45 runs. After Australia's surprise win in England in 1882, the Sporting Times ran a mock obituary for English cricket, and the joke about its ashes gave birth to the Ashes urn.
A magazine revived the test match label in February 1892, and in 1894 the South Australian journalist Clarence P. Moody published a list of 39 matches he considered Tests, starting with that 1877 game. The list was accepted by the end of the century. South Africa joined as the third Test side in 1888 to 1889, and in 1909 the three nations founded the Imperial Cricket Conference, based at Lord's. India, New Zealand and the West Indies became full members in 1926. The rules of that era excluded the United States, even though it had hosted English teams since 1859 and had played Canada in 1844 in the earliest international match of all.
Some early Tests had no time limit. In 1930 a timeless Test in the Caribbean saw England score 849, with Andy Sandham making 325, the first Test triple century. The West Indies were eventually set 836 to win and had reached 408 by the close of the seventh day. The same season produced a scheduling oddity: England played two Tests on the same day, one in New Zealand and one in the West Indies.
Tradition bends slowly. Matches were always played by day with a red ball until concern about falling audiences led the ICC to allow day and night Tests in 2012. The first, played in Adelaide in November 2015 with New Zealand as Australia's opponents, used a pink ball for visibility under lights. Today 12 full member nations play Tests, and the World Test Championship, launched in 2019, crowns the format's champion.
Source: Test cricket
