Follow UsEngland and Zimbabwe will be involved in a one-off four-day Test at Trent Bridge in Nottingham, starting on May 22 (Thursday). It will be something different from the traditional five-day Tests, with a couple of modifications to suit the four-day game.
This will be Zimbabwe’s second four-day Test. They played a four-day game against South Africa in 2017, while England also played a similar match against Ireland in 2023. Before 2017, the last four-day Test was played in 1973, between New Zealand and Pakistan.
Let’s look at all the rules and playing conditions of the four-day Tests and how different it is from the five-day format.
1 - Let us start with the most obvious one: it will have a maximum of four days, instead of the usual five.
2 - A total of 98 overs will be bowled every day, compared to 90 in a five-day Test. Therefore, a total of 392 overs will be bowled in the game, instead of the usual 450.
The play will run for six and a half hours each day, instead of the usual six hours for five-day Tests. Play can be extended by 30 minutes each day to ensure overs are completed.
(However, when England and Ireland played a four-day Test in 2023, they didn’t even bowl 90 overs in a single day. The game lasted for three days. Even the ECB didn’t mention anything regarding the number of overs to be bowled in a day in their playing conditions.)
3 - In four-day Tests, the follow-on margin is reduced to 150 runs (compared to 200 in five-day Tests).
4 - What about the second new ball? Just like it happens in a five-day Test, the second new ball will be available after 80 overs in each innings.