A Cricket test match is played over a maximum 5 days, each day has three 2 hour sessions. Extra time can be played to make up for lost time due to rain or bad light, but not past the 5 days. In the past a rest day was held after the third day, but this is very rare now. This is the same for traditional 'first class games' except they may be only 3 or 4 days long.
Test cricket is essentially the same as other forms of cricket (ODI & 20-20) in that each team as 11 active players and a 12th man. The 12th man can only feild as a substitute, cannot bat or bowl.
Each team has the opportunity to bat twice, each innings ends when 10 wickets are taken or the batting captain declares.
A team wins the test when they 'bowl' the oppoistion out twice and have scored more runs. Note: a team may need to bat only once to achieve this.
A draw occurs when when one team has not completed two innings when the other team has, without scoring more runs.
Other points of interest:
Usually the teams will bat in order (the captain that wins the toss decides who bats first), but a team batting first may 'enforce' a 'follow-on' if they dismiss the team batting second for a low score, 200 runs less than the first teams score, but they donot have to do this as it is a tactical decision.
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