Two thousand twenty-four was the year when men's Test cricket trumped other formats for excitement, including franchise cricket. From the beginning of the year till the end, the five-day game threw up gripping storylines, unforgettable upsets, and unearthed exciting new heroes. While ODIs didn't matter much in 2024, the T20 World Cups had their moments - India won their first World Cup since 2011, and the New Zealand women were unlikely, but very popular, champions.

There were several reasons why Tests in 2024 were so memorable. In terms of numbers, the key ones were the lack of draws, the dominance of bowlers, and the competitiveness of overseas teams. Let's examine each of these, and other dominant themes, of cricket in 2024.

More Tests, quick Tests, few draws

To start with, 53 men's Tests were played in 2024, the third-highest in a calendar year - only in 2001 (55) and 2002 (54) were more matches played. Only three of those 53 were drawn, of which two were badly hit by weather: the West Indies-South Africa game in Port-of-Spain, and the Brisbane Test between Australia and India. Just 294.5 overs were possible in Port-of-Spain, and 216.1 at the Gabba. The other drawn game was the last Test of the year, in Bulawayo, between Zimbabwe and Afghanistan. The draw percentage of 5.66 is the lowest for all years in which at least 20 Tests have been played.

Not only were there plenty of results, they also came quickly: the average length of a Test with a win-loss result was 271.4 overs, which is the lowest ever in any year that has had at least 15 such result Tests. In 2023, the average result Test lasted 283 overs, which means this year the drop has been a further four percent. Twenty decisive Tests lasted 250 overs or fewer, which is the most in a calendar year - the next highest is just 13 in 2018 (out of 43 Tests that ended with a win-loss result). Thirteen Tests ended in three days or fewer in 2024, and 40 in four. Both are records in any calendar year.

We should have seen all of this coming, given that the year started with the shocking 107-over Test between South Africa and India in Cape Town, the shortest result match ever in Test history. In fact, till the Melbourne Boxing Day Test, the longest completed match of the year lasted only 2149 deliveries (358.1 overs). The Melbourne Test lasted 405 overs (2430 deliveries), but that was the outlier, not the norm in 2024.

Runs at a premium, bowlers on a rampage

An average of 29.01 runs were scored per wicket in 2024, the sixth lowest among the 56 years in which at least 20 Tests each have been played, and significantly lower than 2023's average of 32.50. Exclude the last Test of the year, the Zimbabwe-Afghanistan, one where 59.46 runs were scored per wicket, and the average runs per wicket drops to 28.60, which is third on the all-time list, next only to 1959 and 2018 (with a 20-Test cutoff).

In terms of bowler strike rate, 2024 was easily the best ever: for the first time in a calendar year (where ten or more Tests were played), bowlers needed fewer than 50 deliveries to take a wicket.

Both spinners and fast bowlers had a bumper year, finishing with record hauls. The quick bowlers took 1096 wickets, going past the previous record of 1075 in 2002, at an average of 26.52, which is the sixth best among the 56 years that have hosted at least 20 Tests. Meanwhile, spinners averaged 31.63, which is eighth best, for their 689 wickets, which is also a record for them in a calendar year.

In terms of bowler strike rates, 2024 was the best for pace and spin: fast bowlers struck every 44.9 balls, well clear of the next-best figure, 50.7 in 2019, while the spin strike rate of 54.2 was also much better than the previous year's 58.2 (both with 20-Test cutoffs).

Eighteen fast bowlers took 25 or more Tests wickets each in the year, of which 15 averaged under 30. Two of the three who missed the cut averaged just over 30 - Mitchell Starc (30.54) and Mohammad Siraj (30.82). On the other hand, five fast bowlers took 25 or more wickets at under 20 - Josh Hazlewood, Jasprit Bumrah, Matt Henry, Brydon Carse and Kagiso Rabada. Only once have more bowlers achieved this feat in a calendar year, in 2018.

Among the 15 spinners to take 20 or more wickets, nine averaged under 30, though the leading wicket-taker also had the worst average: Shoaib Bashir's 49 wickets came at an expensive 40.16 each.

High on speed, low on runs

While scoring was difficult, batters seemed unwilling to grind out tough runs: the average run rate was 3.65, the highest ever in a calendar year. This follows the 2023 run rate of 3.52, which has now been pushed to second place. This means the two highest annual run rates in Tests have come in the last two years.

Among the nine teams that played more than five Tests in 2024, six scored at over 3.5 runs per over. Bazball England led the way, well ahead of the other teams at 4.38, but five other sides - India, Australia, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and Pakistan - scored at over 3.50. In 2023, too, England topped with 4.87, but Bangladesh and New Zealand were the only other teams that exceeded 3.5 (with a four-Test cutoff). Clearly, more teams are looking to take the aggressive route, in spite of (or perhaps because of) the difficult batting conditions.

A legend called Bumrah

Seventy-one wickets at 14.92, and a strike rate of 30.1. Jasprit Bumrah was an unstoppable force through much of 2024 - in four of the five series he played in the year (including a Test in South Africa in January), he averaged under 17. The only blip was the home series against New Zealand, when he took only three wickets in two Tests at 42.33.

Bumrah's year is up there among the greatest years ever for a bowler in Tests. With a 50-wicket cutoff, only Waqar Younis has a better strike rate (and the difference is marginal), while the average of 14.92 has been bettered only by Imran Khan and Sydney Barnes.

While Bumrah was firing on all cylinders through much of 2024, the other India fast bowlers took only 63 wickets collectively, at an average of 33.67. In percentage terms, Bumrah took 52.99% of India's total pace wickets; in all of Test history, there have only been five instances of a fast bowler taking a higher percentage of his team's pace wickets in a calendar year, of which two feature Kapil Dev: 1983 and 1979.

No place to hide
for openers

Batting in Test cricket was, overall, a tough ask in 2024, and it was toughest for openers. Their collective average for the year was 28.60; in the 56 years in which at least 20 matches have been played, only once have openers fared worse, and that was only marginally poorer: in 2000, they averaged 28.15.

The numbers were equally dire for opening partnerships. The average of 27.78 was the second lowest among the 54 years that have had at least 75 opening stands; the only instance of a lower partnership average was 2018 (26.98).

There were only four century partnerships for the opening wicket in 207 innings, which is an average of one every 51.75 innings. That's easily the poorest in these 54 years - the next worst is 31.3 in 1985; even in 2018, the openers managed seven in 182 innings, an average of one every 26 innings. Two of the four century opening stands in 2024 involved Yashasvi Jaiswal, whose 201-run partnership with KL Rahul in Perth was the only first-wicket stand exceeding 106 in the entire year.

Of the 18 openers who batted at least ten times in Tests in 2024, 14 ended up averaging under 30. Only one - Jaiswal - averaged over 50 (54.74); the others with 30-plus averages were Tony de Zorzi, Ben Duckett and Aiden Markram. Fourteen is easily the record for most openers averaging under 30 in a calendar year (with a ten-innings cutoff); there are two instances of ten openers averaging so low - 2011 and 2018.

Even among the four who did average over 30, there is an unwanted record: Duckett averaged 37.06 for the 1149 runs he scored last year (including from one innings at No. 3), which is lowest ever for a batter who has scored 1000-plus runs in a calendar year. He is one of only four batters to average under 40 when socring 1000-plus runs in a year, out of 171 instances of batters scoring 1000 or more runs in a year. Two of the other three are from England as well.

Overseas teams lift
their game

New Zealand's 3-0 win in India was unarguably the biggest upset of the year, but there were also Bangladesh's 2-0 win in Pakistan, West Indies' Test win in Brisbane, and series wins by England in New Zealand and South Africa in Bangladesh. Overall, these results contributed hugely to ensuring that away teams won 21 Tests in 2024, the most ever in a calendar year. (This excludes Tests at neutral venues.)

In terms of the win-loss ratio, away teams managed 0.750 (21 wins, 28 losses), which is a significant improvement of 40% over the last seven years, when they only managed 0.537 (79 wins, 147 losses). In the last 20 years, there have been only four instances when the win-loss ratio was better than in 2024. –cricinfo