Test Cricket Playing Teams
There are currently ten Test-playing teams, the majority of which are individual nations (except for England and the West Indies).
Test status is conferred upon a country or group of countries by the International Cricket Council. Teams that do not have Test status can only officially play a shortened version of cricket, except in events such as the ICC Intercontinental Cup, which was specifically designed to allow non-Test teams to play under conditions similar to Tests. The teams are listed below with the date of each team's Test debut:
| Order | Team | Date of first Test Match | Number of matches before first win | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | England | 15 March 1877 | 1 | At the time represented all of Britain, but now officially represents England and Wales. |
| 2 | Australia | 15 March 1877 | 0 | |
| 3 | South Africa | 12 March 1889 | 11 | Did not participate in international cricket between 10 March 1970 and 10 November 1991 after the International Cricket Conference suspended South Africa in response to the then South African Government's policy of apartheid. |
| 4 | West Indies | 23 June 1928 | 5 | Consists of players from a number of Caribbean nations and dependencies. (10 independent nations and five dependencies) |
| 5 | New Zealand | 10 January 1930 | 42 | |
| 6 | India | 25 June 1932 | 24 | Before partition of India in 1947, included territory that now forms Pakistan and Bangladesh. |
| 7 | Pakistan | 16 October 1952 | 1 | Before Bangladeshi independence in 1971, included territory that is now Bangladesh. |
| 8 | Sri Lanka | 17 February 1982 | 13 | |
| 9 | Zimbabwe | 18 October 1992 | 10 | Voluntarily suspended from Test cricket between 10 June 2004 and 6 January 2005, and from 18 January 2006 until 3 August 2011 |
| 10 | Bangladesh | 10 November 2000 | 34 |
Ireland has stated its intention to apply for Full Membership of the ICC with the aim of achieving Test status.
Read more about this topic: Test Cricket
Famous quotes containing the words test, cricket, playing and/or teams:
“The first reading of a Will, where a person dies worth anything considerable, generally affords a true test of the relations’ love to the deceased.”
—Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.”
—Langston Hughes (1902–1967)
“A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always like a cat falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days and feels no shame in not “studying a profession,” for he does not postpone his life, but lives already.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)