September 24, 2007. The Wanderers. Pakistan need 13 off the last over with one wicket left.
Joginder Sharma bowls a wide. Then a dot. Misbah-ul-Haq hits the next one for six. Six off four balls. Misbah goes for the scoop over fine leg. Sreesanth is waiting at short fine leg. India win the first T20 World Cup by five runs.
August 25, 2019. Headingley. England need 359 to win the Test. At 286 for 9 the match is over. Then Ben Stokes and Jack Leach add 76 for the last wicket. Leach makes one run. Stokes makes 135 not out. England win by one wicket.
Two different formats and two different grounds. Both matches came down to the last few balls. Pure entertainment!
In the 20th Over Index I asked how often the IPL goes down to the wire. This time I asked a different question. Where does cricket go down to the wire? Which grounds produce the closest contests in each format? And if close games are a proxy for entertainment then cricket in which countries are the most entertaining to watch?
The rules
Each format gets its own definition of close. Each is deliberately strict.
T20Is (the 20th Over Index). The chase reaches the 20th over, and the chasing side either wins or loses by 10 runs or fewer.
ODIs (the 50th Over Index). Any one of these:
- The chasing side wins in the 50th over.
- The chasing side wins by one or two wickets, at any stage.
- The chasing side loses by 15 runs or fewer, at any stage.
Tests (the Close Test Index). Any one of these:
- A win by three wickets or fewer, or by 25 runs or fewer. Innings wins never count.
- A real fourth-innings chase (target above 75) that ends with two or fewer wickets in hand. Either the chase wins, or the side is bowled out within 50 runs of the target.
- A draw where the side batting last finished nine wickets down.
Ties always count. No-results, rain-shortened games and awarded matches are out. The ground and country tables use only matches between Full Members, so a mismatch against an associate side doesn’t drag a ground down.
The data covers every men’s international in Cricsheet’s archive, across more than two decades:
| Format | Matches in archive | First match | Latest match |
|---|---|---|---|
| T20I | 3,558 | 17 Feb 2005 | 17 Sep 2026 |
| ODI | 2,576 | 27 Jun 2002 | 15 Sep 2026 |
| Test | 895 | 19 Dec 2001 | 9 Sep 2026 |
The baselines set the ladder:
| Format | Matches | Close | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| T20I | 1,020 | 291 | 28.5% |
| ODI | 1,725 | 270 | 15.7% |
| Test | 893 | 76 | 8.5% |
Roughly one T20I in three and a half goes down to the wire. One ODI in six. One Test in twelve.
The grounds
T20Is: the Wanderers, and then everyone else
| Ground | Matches | Close | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wanderers, Johannesburg | 27 | 15 | 55.6% |
| Newlands, Cape Town | 21 | 11 | 52.4% |
| Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury, Chattogram | 13 | 7 | 53.8% |
| SCG, Sydney | 14 | 7 | 50.0% |
| MCG, Melbourne | 17 | 6 | 35.3% |
More than half the T20Is at the Wanderers come down to the last over. That is nearly double the baseline. It is the strongest ground effect in any format, and the hardest to put down to luck. Newlands is close behind it. Two South African grounds sit at the top of the table.
There’s a caveat. Nine of the Wanderers’ 15 thrillers came before 2012, and the last two T20Is there were lost by the chasing side by more than 100 runs. The legend may be fading.
At the other end: Narendra Modi Stadium has produced one close T20I in 12. Hagley Oval in New Zealand and Lauderhill Florida aren’t much better.
ODIs: Australia’s smaller grounds
| Ground | Matches | Close | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bellerive Oval, Hobart | 16 | 6 | 37.5% |
| Adelaide Oval | 33 | 9 | 27.3% |
| Old Trafford | 20 | 6 | 30.0% |
| MCG, Melbourne | 34 | 9 | 26.5% |
| Eden Park, Auckland | 21 | 6 | 28.6% |
Hobart is the 50-over thriller capital. More than one ODI in three there is close. Three of the top four grounds are Australian.
The bottom of the table holds the surprise. National Stadium, Karachi has had one close ODI in 29. The SCG is next to it with three in 39. The SCG was fourth on the T20I list. Few grounds change character as much between formats.
Tests: England’s grounds
| Ground | Tests | Close | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trent Bridge | 18 | 3 | 16.7% |
| Headingley | 19 | 3 | 15.8% |
| Mirpur | 28 | 4 | 14.3% |
| Edgbaston | 20 | 3 | 15.0% |
| Adelaide Oval | 21 | 3 | 14.3% |
Close Tests are rare everywhere and so the numbers are small. But four of the top five are in England or Bangladesh. My guess is that these are grounds where the ball does just enough to keep a fourth-innings chase alive. Edgbaston 2005 was a two-run win. Trent Bridge 2013 was 14 runs. Headingley 2019 was Stokes.
The MCG has produced zero close Tests in 22. Galle has one in 40. Only about one Test in ten is drawn at either ground. Almost all the rest end in comfortable wins.
The countries
Close games are my proxy for entertainment. There are two ways to read “most entertaining country”. Where to watch is the country the match is played in. Who to watch is the team on the field. They do not give the same answer.
T20Is: watch in South Africa, watch Pakistan
| Host country | Matches | Close | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| South Africa | 92 | 37 | 40.2% |
| UAE | 74 | 25 | 33.8% |
| Bangladesh | 85 | 26 | 30.6% |
| Pakistan | 53 | 16 | 30.2% |
| … | |||
| New Zealand | 103 | 26 | 25.2% |
| England | 91 | 21 | 23.1% |
| Ireland | 25 | 5 | 20.0% |
Two in five T20Is in South Africa are thrillers. No other host comes close. England and Ireland are the least entertaining Full Member hosts.
By team, it is flat at the top. Pakistan (31.9%), Sri Lanka, India and South Africa (all ~31%) play the closest T20Is. The outlier is at the bottom. Bangladesh play close T20Is only 21.3% of the time, and West Indies 23.8%. When they lose, they tend to lose big.
A bonus for associate cricket: across all T20Is, the Netherlands is the most entertaining host in the world, with 16 close games in 40 (40%).
ODIs: watch in Australia, watch England
| Host country | Matches | Close | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | 199 | 40 | 20.1% |
| UAE | 83 | 15 | 18.1% |
| West Indies | 156 | 27 | 17.3% |
| England | 222 | 36 | 16.2% |
| … | |||
| Pakistan | 93 | 11 | 11.8% |
| Zimbabwe | 123 | 14 | 11.4% |
Australia is the best place to watch an ODI. One in five goes down to the wire. Ireland’s rate is slightly higher (6 of 28) but rests on a far smaller sample. Pakistan and Zimbabwe are the least entertaining hosts.
By team, England play the closest ODIs (18.6%), just ahead of Australia and Pakistan (~17%). Ireland matches England’s rate on just 69 games. At the bottom, Zimbabwe (10.0%) and Bangladesh (11.5%) play the fewest close ODIs, and both are well below the baseline. Sri Lanka (13.1%) is next.
Tests: watch in England, watch Australia
| Host country | Tests | Close | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| England | 153 | 18 | 11.8% |
| Bangladesh | 67 | 8 | 11.9% |
| Pakistan | 36 | 4 | 11.1% |
| West Indies | 86 | 8 | 9.3% |
| … | |||
| South Africa | 95 | 6 | 6.3% |
| Sri Lanka | 89 | 4 | 4.5% |
England is the place to watch a close Test, and it has the sample to back it up. Bangladesh matches England’s rate on fewer Tests. Sri Lanka is the least entertaining Test host: four close Tests in 89.
By team, Australia play the closest Tests: 12.7%, well clear of England (10.1%). That’s the clearest team-level signal in Test cricket. South Africa (4.7%) and Sri Lanka (5.1%) sit at the bottom.
The through-line
No country is the most entertaining in every format.
South Africa is the best place in the world to watch a T20I. Its Test side plays the fewest close Tests of anyone.
Australia is the best place to watch an ODI, and its Test team is the most entertaining Test side. Yet the MCG has zero close Tests, and the SCG barely produces a close ODI.
England hosts the closest Tests and fields the closest ODI team. As a T20I host it is near the bottom.
Bangladesh has the most clear-cut profile of all. At home in Mirpur the Tests are tight. In white-ball cricket its matches are among the least close of any Full Member, in both formats.
Most of the ground-level differences are small enough that a few more matches could reshuffle them. The ones that stand up best are the Wanderers and South Africa in T20Is, and Australia’s Test side.
If you want a thriller: watch a T20I in Johannesburg, an ODI in Hobart, and Australia in a Test in England.
Sources and method: ball-by-ball data from Cricsheet: 3,558 men’s T20 internationals (17 February 2005 to 17 September 2026), 2,576 men’s ODIs (27 June 2002 to 15 September 2026) and 895 men’s Tests (19 December 2001 to 9 September 2026). Cricsheet withholds matches involving Afghanistan, so they are absent. Unlike the IPL post, this one excludes rain-shortened limited-overs games rather than using the reduced allotment. Ground and country tables use Full Member v Full Member matches only. Minimum sample is 12 matches per ground for T20Is, 15 for ODIs and 10 for Tests. Grounds are ranked with a small-sample adjustment that pulls thin records toward the format average, so a ground with three thrillers in five can’t top the table. Venue names were merged where grounds were renamed (Feroz Shah Kotla is now Arun Jaitley Stadium; Beausejour is now Daren Sammy). West Indies venues are grouped as one host, and Cardiff counts as England. Cricsheet’s Test coverage before 2006 is patchy, so the Test numbers mostly reflect the last twenty years. Full definitions are on the Methods & Sources page.
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