In cricket, a tie occurs when the match is concluded with each team having scored exactly the same number of runs and the side batting last having completed its innings. The definition of a completed innings would be if all ten batsmen have been dismissed or the pre-determined number of overs have been completed. It is rare for first-class matches to end in ties and, in more than 200 years of first-class cricket, it has happened on just 67 occasions, two of those in Test matches.[1]
The earliest known instance of a tie is in a single wicket "threes" match at Lamb's Conduit Field on Wednesday, 1 September 1736. Three London players were matched against three of Surrey. Although the sources give different totals for each innings, they are agreed that both teams totalled 23 overall. London batted first and scored either 4 and 19, or 3 and 18. Surrey replied with either 18 and 5, or 17 and 6.[2][3][4] Five years later, the same two teams produced the earliest known tie in an eleven-a-side match. The first tie in a match later given first-class cricket status was in 1783 between a Hampshire XI and a Kent XI.[5]
A tie was previously sometimes declared where the scores were level when scheduled play ended, but the side batting last still had wickets in hand. In 1948, the rules were changed so that when this occurs the match is declared a draw. This happened in a Test between England and Zimbabwe in 1996.[6] England needed 205 to win the match in their fourth innings, off 37 overs, but finished the day 204/6. With three runs required off the last ball, Nick Knight was run out going for the third, thus making it the first time in Test history that a match had finished drawn with scores level.[7] It happened again in 2011, in a Test between India and the West Indies at Mumbai, this time with nine wickets down in the fourth innings.[8]
The two tied test matches both ended on the penultimate ball of the match, with Australia vs West Indies (1960) finishing on ball 7 of 8 and India vs Australia (1986) finishing on ball 5 of 6 in the final over of play. In 2024, the match between Gloucestershire and Glamorgan was tied on the last possible ball of the match. With Glamorgan just one run away the highest successful 4th innings run chase in the history of first-class cricket, wicketkeeper James Bracey claimed his tenth victim to tie the match.[9]
In January 2021, the final of the 2020–21 Quaid-e-Azam Trophy in Pakistan finished as a tie, the first tie in the final of a domestic first-class cricket tournament.[10]
Below is a list of all first-class matches that have been declared tied, including those before 1948 which would have been draws in the modern era.[1]
As the last possible ball of the match was bowled, it is possibly unique that all four results were possible with Glamorgan needing just one run and Gloucestershire needing one wicket for victory. Glamorgan were poised one run away from a target of 593, which would have been the highest successful 4th innings chase in the history of first-class cricket.[9]