Success rate of chasing over 200 is = 12.42%.
Chasing a target is never easy, therefore most teams prefer to bat first in a Test match….irrespective how bad the pitches are…as they tend to mend and get even by 3rd session of day 1.
Now, what is like chasing targets in Test matches and what is the success rate?.
Below table is a quick observation on how teams have fared since 2000.
The red marks suggests huge drop in success rate – as one can notice anything between 201-250 is not difficult to chase(73.68% success rate) but once the target passes 250 mark, than success rate falls steeply, only 25.00% success…. Similarly another steep drop is when target has crossed 300 mark… here the fall is from 33 to 15…
| Target | Tests | Won | Success % |
| 100-150 | 34 | 32 | 94.12 % |
| 151-200 | 45 | 36 | 80.00 % |
| 201-250 | 19 | 14 | 73.68 % |
| 251-275 | 20 | 5 | 25.00 % |
| 276-300 | 18 | 6 | 33.33 % |
| 301-325 | 26 | 4 | 15.38 % |
| 326-350 | 20 | 2 | 10.00 % |
| 351-375 | 28 | 1 | 3.57 % |
| 376-400 | 21 | 1 | 4.76 % |
| >400 | 100 | 2 | 2.00 % |
Now, what fascinated me is the last row…chasing >400, only 2% success rate… here > 400 target, has been asked to chase the most – 100 times!!
while chasing this big target(> 400) I was keen to know at what score teams will end up with, and a quick analysis showed… (2000-2013)
36.00% manage to crawl beyond 300 score
49.00% manage to crawl beyond 275 score
60.00 % manage to crawl beyond 250 score
I reckon teams feel safe giving a 400+ target, because for them its 80.00% success – and only 2.00% loss.
And quick look at Test history, and found out the number of times teams were asked to chase 400+ in Test History was 240 – with only 4 teams(1.66%) successfully chasing that target. Loss is 76.66%.
Here is a list of Test history’s target chase and their success.
| Target | Tests | Won | Success % |
| 100-150 | 125 | 100 | 80.00 % |
| 151-200 | 142 | 83 | 58.45 % |
| 201-250 | 155 | 50 | 32.26 % |
| 251-275 | 77 | 16 | 20.78 % |
| 276-300 | 80 | 15 | 18.75 % |
| 301-325 | 89 | 10 | 11.24 % |
| 326-350 | 78 | 8 | 10.26 % |
| 351-375 | 81 | 3 | 3.70 % |
| 376-399 | 68 | 1 | 1.47 % |
| >400 | 240 | 4 | 1.67 % |
I have chosen 100 as minimum target to chase.
And a look at where teams ended while chasing 400+
7.50 % manage to crawl beyond 400 score.
10.41% manage to crawl beyond 375 score.
15.00 % manage to crawl beyond 350 score.
32.50% manage to crawl beyond 300 score.
42.91% manage to crawl beyond 275 score.
53.75% manage to crawl beyond 250 score.
All data updated after the 4th Ashes Test-2013
