Test Match Special - Daily Ashes Quiz: Longest winless runs

Episode Date: December 8, 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.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. 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. Hello, welcome to the test match special Daily Ashes Quiz with me, Andy Zaltzman, TMS statistician. Delighted to be able to tell you that statistically. Every time England have been 2-0 down in the Ashes recently, They've bounced back to win the third test every time in the last one previous series,

and admittedly that wasn't in Australia, and after the first two tests have been pretty close. But let's cling to that numerical straw. Every weekday during the current Ashes series, I have an Ashes-related question for you to have a guess at, see how close you can get. The closer you are, the more runs you can award yourself. Let's start with the answer from Friday's question, which I said after Australia had reached 300 in their first innings in Brisbane, in just 58.3 over is the fastest they've ever run.

reach 300 against England. My question was in men's ashes cricket, what is the average number of overs taken by teams to reach 300 A this millennium and B, for comparison in the 1950s and 60s combined? The answers, this millennium, the average Ashes 300 has been brought up in 86.3 overs, and in the 1950s and 60s, it was 121.2 overs. That's a whole run per over difference, 3.48 per over, this millennium, 2.48 per over in the 1950s and 60s. Cricket was quite a stodgy game back then, so let's call the answers 86 and 121 for both parts. If you're within two either way, give itself a six, five either way, you've scored a four. If you're within 10 either way, you've scored two.

Twenty either way, you can have a single, but if you're more than 40 out, well, you've driven on the upper to good length ball you probably should have left, and you're out. Today's question follows England making 17 tests in a row in Australia without a win, 15 losses and two draws since Andrew Strauss's triumphant tour 15 years ago. That's England's longest winless run in men's ashes tests in Australia. The question is, what was England's previous longest sequence of ashes tests in Australia without a win and what is Australia's longest sequence of ashes tests in England without a win? So what is England's previous longest winless run in Ashes Cricket in Australia

before the current 17 match sequence and what is Australia's longest run of matches in England without a win in the Ashes? I'll have the answer and another question for you tomorrow. The TMS Daily Essis quiz is only available on BBC Sounds where you can also find daily podcasts throughout the Ashes if you want to be notified as soon as a new episode drops. Make sure you're subscribed to the Test Match Special podcast on BBC Sounds. Until tomorrow, good.

Goodbye. 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 pit.

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.