In the Test format, partnerships can make or break a team’s chance to win a match. After all, it’s a game of skills and patience, and the team that scores more runs dominates the game.
Thus, two top-class batters must extend their stay on the pitch and accumulate as many runs as possible. The formidable pair of Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar understood this well and went on to score the most partnership runs together.
Here, in this article, we’ll look at the top 10 batting pairs with the most overall partnership runs in Tests.
Most Partnership Runs by a Pair in Test (Overall)
| Partners | Innings | Total Partnership Runs | Highest Partnership | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar (IND) | 143 | 6920 | 249 | 50.51 |
| Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara (SL) | 120 | 6554 | 624 | 56.50 |
| Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes (WI) | 148 | 6482 | 298 | 47.31 |
| Matthew Hayden, Justin Langer (AUS) | 122 | 6081 | 255 | 51.53 |
| Alastair Cook, Andrew Strauss (ENG) | 132 | 5253 | 229 | 40.40 |
| Matthew Hayden, Ricky Ponting (AUS) | 76 | 4765 | 272 | 67.11 |
| Marvan Atapattu, Sanath Jayasuriya (SL) | 122 | 4533 | 335 | 39.41 |
| Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag (IND) | 87 | 4412 | 233 | 52.52 |
| Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar (IND) | 71 | 4173 | 281 | 61.36 |
| Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman (IND) | 86 | 4065 | 376 | 51.45 |
Key Insights
The batting pair of Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar has scored the most partnership runs in the Test format. Both batters shared 6920 runs while batting in tandem for India in Test cricket.
Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara share the honour of stitching the highest partnership for any wicket in a Test innings. Both Sri Lankan legends were on a roll against South Africa as they built an astounding 624-run partnership in 2006. (You can read about this whirlwind collaboration here.)
Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes have been part of the most unbeaten partnerships in the format. They partnered in 11 unbroken partnerships, with the pair of Ross Taylor and Kane Williamson being the only ones with 10 or more not-out partnerships.
The Windies’ pair of Greenidge and Haynes have scored the most partnership runs for the opening wicket in the longest format. Their tally of 6482 runs came while opening the batting in 148 innings.
Dravid and Tendulkar were involved in 49 fifty-plus partnerships, the most by a pair in Tests. 20 of them were 100-plus run stands, the most century partnerships by a pair in Tests.
In contrast, Australia’s two pairs – Bill Lawry and Keith Stackpole & John Dyson and Graeme Wood – and Windies duo Carl Hooper and Richie Richardson never built a century-stand among the pairs with 1000+ partnership runs.
Australia’s Matthew Hayden-Justin Langer and South Africa’s Hashim Amla-Jacques Kallis put together six double-century partnerships each, the most by a pair in Tests.
Amla and Kallis converted three of those stands into 300-plus runs partnerships, the joint-most by a pair in Tests. Herschelle Gibbs and Graeme Smith is the other duo with three triple-hundred partnerships in this format.
Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe have the best partnership average in the red-ball format. The English pair added an average of 87.86 partnership runs before a dismissal.
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