Test Match Special - Daily Ashes Quiz: Average first innings winning scores

Episode Date: December 29, 2025

Every weekday during the 2025-26 Ashes, comedian and statistician Andy Zaltzman poses new a cricketing conundrum. It won’t be easy though. You might want to take it away, share in your group chats and challenge your friends. Andy will reveal the answer the following day.Test Match Special has live commentary on BBC Sounds with a team including Jonathan Agnew, Simon Mann and Jim Maxwell. England's 2005 Ashes-winning captain Michael Vaughan, legendary Australia seamer Glenn McGrath and ex-England spinners Phil Tufnell and Alex Hartley will be part of the punditry team.

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delivered every day. Listen to Football Daily on Spotify, to Football Daily on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to the Test Match Special Daily Ashes Quiz. I am Andy Zaltzman, TMS Statskeeper, and purveyor of 110% partially verifiable cricketing, probable factivitiveness. For the rest of the week, you can get your Daily Ashes-Related Stats Poser exclusively on BBC Sounds, a question not to test your trivial knowledge, but to see how close you can get to guessing a number that I've dug up for you.

We'll start with Friday's answer. This question came after England's top four made a not particularly grand. total of eight runs in the first innings of the MCG victory, eight runs that proved crucial in the end, sort of. The question was, what was the average runs by England's top four per match in the first innings of tests in Australia from 1990 up to and including this year's Adelaide test? And the answer was 147, which is definitely more than eight. So for our scoring system, if you're within five either way, you fit a six, if you're within 15 either way, Four, 25 either way, you can have two, 40 either way.

You've nudged a single into a big gap on the leg side, but if you're 70 or more out, so 77 and under, or 217 and over, you have lost a wicket. I do hope you've been keeping score over the last month and a bit. Today's question follows on neatly. England won at the MCG, despite being bowled out for 110. That's the lowest first inning score in an England win in Australia since the 19th century.

The question for you today is, in England, 143 previous match wins in Australia from the start of the 20th century up to their most recent victory before this one, in other words the fifth test in 2010-11. What was England's average first-inning score? So I want England's average first inning score in their 43 victories in Australia from the start of the 20th century up to the one before this week. I'll have the answer and another question for you tomorrow. Test match special is bringing you daily podcasts during Demands Ashes, if you want to be notified as soon as a new episode drops, make sure you're subscribed to the TMS podcast on BBC Sounds

and have push notifications turned on in your phone settings. This month in football, everything is up for grabs. The Premier League battles intensify, the Champions League reaches its crucial turning point, and the World Cup draw sets the stage for the biggest tournament on earth. Football Daily from the BBC brings you sharp analysis, instant reaction, expert insight, and the stories driving the game on and off the pitch.

Your essential football podcast delivered every day. Listen to Football Daily on Spotify, to Football Daily on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.