What are the biggest upsets in Test history?

And do New Zealand have the two biggest upsets of all time?

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In 05-06, we had one of the biggest upsets in the history of Test cricket. A South African side which was not particularly well rated at that stage absolutely and utterly destroyed England.

The fact that they won 4-1 was pretty big. But also, they did this with legspinners. Lots and lots of legspinners. Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse type legspinners. And like South Africa often do, they were also allrounders - which meant that their team had an incredible amount of bowlers and a very long batting line-up.

Now, if you’re thinking 05-06? South Africa? Legspinners? Yeah, it was 1905-06.

In that series, as England often did when they went to South Africa, they had a bit of an undermanned side. They didn’t actually think that South Africa warranted a full-strength opposition,

Because at that point, South Africa had never actually won a Test match. They went from never having won a Test to winning a series 4-1. The first game they absolutely stole was through an incredible last-wicket partnership. And even though a lot of us go on about the legspinners, they really played well all the way through. It wasn’t just legspin that won them the series. And by the end, they were clearly a better team than that England side.

However, no matter how you look at this - a bit of a weakened English side who weren’t taking South Africa that seriously - when it comes down to it, the underdogs won that series for one very peculiar reason.

An Englishman had invented a delivery called the Bosie, which went on to be called the googly. He taught it to his friend, who went back to West Transvaal and taught all of his friends how to bowl this delivery. And suddenly all of West Transvaal, and then all of South Africa’s bowlers could bowl this delivery that no one else in the world had really mastered at that point.

They beat England on the back of what was largely one delivery. The wrong ‘un. It is even to this day, one of the biggest upsets of all time. Not just because South Africa won the series, but because they dominated it. But while it is a huge upset, it is not the only one.

I wanted to know if there was a way of ranking the greatest upsets of all time. Specifically because I think you could make the argument that perhaps the two greatest upsets in the history of the game have both been by New Zealand.

So how do we decide which is the biggest upset in Test cricket? I came up with some brief metrics to work this out.

The first thing you’re looking for in an upset, of course, is the difference in talent between the two teams. In the 1905-06 series, South Africa were completely the underdogs, and England were the favourites. With hindsight, and now understanding what South Africa was doing, you’d have to say that was just because cricket writing wasn’t as good as it should have been. This series was actually played on matting wickets, which helped the wristspinners a lot because the ball spins all the time.

There were actually signs there that this South Africa team was going to be pretty good.

The other thing you’re looking for is the ‘wow’ factor. When you hear this result, does it actually stop you in your tracks? There is no doubt that if you’d have been a cricket fan in 1905-06, and you’d heard that South Africa had beaten England 4-1, you would’ve fallen over.

I think impact is a really important one too. How long do we talk about it? Does it change things? And when you think about this particular series, it actually leads to something quite remarkable: the formation of the ICC.

If South Africa didn’t beat England, there’s every chance the ICC is not formed at that time or in that way.

And finally we have the result.

In 1905-06, South Africa beat England 4-1. There’s tripping over the line, and then there’s absolute dominance from an underdog.

These are the kind of metrics I looked at when I was trying to put this list together. It’s very subjective and I’m sure I’ve missed some really, really interesting series. But I wanted to come up with a group of series that I thought were some of the most surprising that have ever existed in cricket.

In 2014, Sri Lanka went to England with a bit of an undermanned side, and no one really expected much. England completely dominated the first Test, and all they needed was one more wicket.

And if you go back and look at that last over at Lord’s, you will see one of the most entertaining moments in the history of Test cricket. Somehow Sri Lanka managed to stay in and not lose that game, meaning that they went to Headingley with that being the deciding Test.

Unfortunately, they got massively behind in that game too. At this point, it was very hard to say that Sri Lanka were anywhere near as good as England. Except, something truly remarkable happened.

Angelo Mathews and Rangana Herath formed this incredible partnership that completely seemed to break Alastair Cook’s brain, and they roared back into the game. But then they still had to bowl England out, and that took an incredibly long time, including on the fifth day when England didn’t even have that many wickets in hand.

They took it all the way to the end before Jimmy Anderson was out in the last over, and then he went on Sky and he cried about it. That’s how much it meant to Jimmy Anderson. But it specifically meant that Sri Lanka had won that series.

I think when we’re looking at the result part of this, we’d have to say that there was a little bit of luck involved. Sri Lanka were massively behind in both of these matches. And if England win that first Test, which they were very close to, this series is not even on the list. All England needed was one more wicket in that first Test, and this would have been a drawn series.

It would still have been an upset, but just not as big.

I put this series kind of low down because it’s not a series that people remember all that much, but it was truly one of the more remarkable two-Test series you will ever see.

In 1998-99, Zimbabwe were actually a really good cricket team. They had this sort of ‘little engine that could’ batting line-up that did really well for them. They had a couple of bowlers who could take wickets, and they had played good cricket for a long period of time.

But most of their best work was done at home. And when they went to Pakistan, no one was really expecting all that much from them.

In the first test at Peshawar, Pakistan actually had a lead at the halfway point of that game. But in the third innings, they were bowled out for 103, meaning that Zimbabwe only needed 162 to win. Still a potentially tricky chase, but they did it three wickets down. Which meant for a three-Test series, they were now 1-0 up. Of course, Pakistan were going to come back pretty hard and in the second Test they were dominating.

Then on Day 5 when they still had a small chance of forcing a result and winning the game, the entire day was fogged out. Fog stopped play.

If you’re Pakistan, you’re like, ‘Fair enough, we’ve got one more Test match. We’ll see how we go.’

But the third Test was completely abandoned. I don’t even think they released team sheets. And again, fog stopped play. Six days of fog basically meant that Zimbabwe ended up beating Pakistan 1-0.

Like the Sri Lanka series, this easily could have gone in a different direction. But still, it is one of the greatest results in Zimbabwean cricket history.

Then there’s New Zealand in India, 2024-25, with a 3-0 result. I covered the entire series, and it’s still absolutely shocking to me that this happened. I predicted beforehand that India would win 3-0. If you asked me to go back in time and start again, knowing what I know now, I would still go back and predict that India were going win 3-0.

Even allowing for the fact that the batters and the spinners were no longer what they were, I still cannot believe that New Zealand managed to win 3-0. Maybe knowing everything I know now, I would go back and do 2-1.

So the ‘wow’ on that is about as high as you can be, even if you look at the strength factor. Not only were New Zealand underdogs, but India were incredible favourites. They had lost one series at home in 20 years, and New Zealand hadn’t won a Test in India since 1988. They’re just not really built to go to India and Test match it. 3-0 is just absolutely remarkable.

On top of that, India looked like they were in the middle of transitioning into maybe one of the best runs of all time. All they had to do was keep it together for a little bit longer as the older batters and older spinners went out, and the new crop came in. Instead, Ajaz Patel, Mitch Santner and one green top did almost all the damage for them, on top of all the sweeps, reverse sweeps and everything else.

It was just absolutely shocking. As far as impact goes, we are going to be talking about that Test series for a very long time, because anyone who was watching Test cricket in this era just could not believe it. The ‘wow’ factor on this one was through the roof.