Test Match Special - Daily Ashes Quiz: Most centuries scored

Episode Date: November 18, 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. To embrace the impossible requires a vehicle that pushes what's possible. Defender 110 boasts a towing capacity of 3,500 kilograms, a weighting depth of 900 millimeters, and a roof load up to 300 kilograms. Learn more at landrover.ca. Hello, welcome to the TMS Ashes Daily. quiz in which I, Andy Zaltzman, TMS Statskeeper, present you with an Ashes-related question to take a guess at. Yesterday's question was this. How many century opening stands of Australia

had in the first innings of the first tests of all the Ashes series in Australia? That's 36 series. And the answer is zero. Yes, zero. Australia have never reached 100 for naught in their first innings of a home Ashes series. Now, if you remember from yesterday, we're introducing a scoring system for the Ashes Daily Quiz. So if you said zero, you've hit a six. If you said one or two, you've got four. If you said three or four, you've nudged it into a gap for two. If you said five, six, seven or eight, you've got a cheeky single.

But if you went 13 or more, you're out first ball of the series, which is bringing back some frankly horrible memories from four years ago. Anything else is a dot ball? It is quite a surprising stat, to be honest. The closest Australia have come to posting 100 before losing their first wicket in a home Ashes series was when Michael Slater and Mark Taylor added 99 in Brisbane in 1994-95. That partnership was ended by a run-outs.

England have three century opening stands in their first innings of Ashes Series in Australia, but the last of those was in 1932-33 at the start of the Bodyline Series. And in fact, only once in 37 Ashes Series in Australia has the team batting first, whether England or Australia in the first test reached 100 for naught, and that was England in December 1901, something for Zach Crawley and Ben Duckett, or Usman Kowager and whoever gets picked out of the hat to open with him to aim for in Perth on Thursday.

Let's move on to today's question. There have been 212 men's ashes test since the resumption of the great rivalry after the Second World War in 1946. In those games, which team has scored more hundreds? You shouldn't get that wrong. And here's the trickier bit by how many. So since 1946, have England or Australia scored more centuries in the men's ashes? and what is the gap in centuries scored between the two teams? No cheating, no scuttling off to look it up on stats, Guru.

Just look yourself honestly in the mirror and take a guess. The scoring system for this one, well, quite simple. If you get the wrong team, you are out. If you get it dead right, in fact I'll give you two either way. You've hit a six. If you are within six, either way of the correct answer, four, within 15, you score two, within 30 you get a single. Otherwise, you've ground out a dot ball.

I'll give you the answer and another pre-assion. poser tomorrow. TMS will be bringing you daily podcasts during the men's ashes. If you want to be notified as soon as a new episode drops, then make sure you are subscribed to the Test Match Special podcast on BBC Sounds and have push notifications turned on in your phone settings. Then the latest episode will make its way directly to you. Until tomorrow, goodbye.