Women’s Test cricket: A statistical look at the game as England host South Africa in June

England Women will play South Africa in a Test match in June as part of a multi-format series.

It will be another welcome outing in a rare format for female players and here we take a statistical look at women’s Test cricket.

There have been only 10 women’s Test matches in the last 10 years, with the format grinding to a virtual halt.

All 10 of those have involved either England (eight matches), Australia (seven) or India (four), with South Africa the only other nation to feature when they took on India in November 2014.

Since a relative peak between 2002 and 2006, with 17 games in those four years including five separate two-Test series, 2014 and 2021 are the only years to see more than one Test played.

This year will join that list but there were none at all in 2010, 2012, 2016, 2018 or, more understandably given the Covid-19 pandemic, 2020.

There have been only 145 women’s Tests ever – including two abandoned without a ball bowled – since the first one in 1934 between England and Australia.

Those two nations lead the way in terms of involvement with England playing in almost two-thirds of all women’s Tests, 97, and Australia in 76.

New Zealand and India have played 45 and 38 respectively, while South Africa’s outing in Taunton this summer will be their 13th and take them one ahead of the West Indies.

No other nation has played more than Pakistan’s three, with Sri Lanka alongside Ireland and Holland in playing a solitary Test. Among Test-playing nations in men’s cricket, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and Afghanistan have never played a women’s Test.

There has been an increasing push in recent months, intensifying since the thrilling drawn Test in the Women’s Ashes, for Tests to be played over five days as in men’s cricket,