Lowest Test Score for India: 36 at Adelaide & Full List

India's smallest completed Test innings is 36, made on the third morning at the Adelaide Oval on 19 December 2020. Josh Hazlewood took 5 for 8 and Pat Cummins 4 for 21; the highest score was Mayank Agarwal's 9; no batter reached double figures. The innings lasted 21.2 overs and ended when Mohammed Shami was struck on the forearm and could not continue, which is why the scorecard reads 36 for 9 rather than 36 all out. Australia knocked off the 90 they needed for the loss of two wickets.

That is not the same as India's worst day, and the distinction matters when you read a list like this one. The 42 at Lord's in 1974 was also a nine-wicket innings. The 46 at the Chinnaswamy in October 2024 was a full ten-wicket dismissal, in a home Test, in the first innings, having chosen to bat — which by several measures is the more damaging entry.

What follows is a ranked list of India's ten lowest completed Test innings, with the overs faced, the innings of the match in which it happened, and how the game ended. Below that is the next tier, every remaining total under 95.

India's ten lowest completed Test innings

Total	Overs	Innings	Opponent	Ground	Date	Match result
36 (9 wkts)	21.2	3rd	Australia	Adelaide Oval	17 Dec 2020	Australia won by 8 wickets
42 (9 wkts)	17.0	3rd	England	Lord's	20 Jun 1974	England won by an innings and 285 runs
46	31.2	1st	New Zealand	Chinnaswamy, Bengaluru	16 Oct 2024	New Zealand won by 8 wickets
58	21.3	2nd	Australia	Brisbane	28 Nov 1947	Australia won by an innings and 226 runs
58	21.4	2nd	England	Old Trafford, Manchester	17 Jul 1952	England won by an innings and 207 runs
66	34.1	4th	South Africa	Kingsmead, Durban	26 Dec 1996	South Africa won by 328 runs
67	24.2	3rd	Australia	Melbourne	6 Feb 1948	Australia won by an innings and 177 runs
75	30.5	1st	West Indies	Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi	25 Nov 1987	West Indies won by 5 wickets
76	20.0	1st	South Africa	Motera, Ahmedabad	3 Apr 2008	South Africa won by an innings and 90 runs
78	40.4	1st	England	Headingley, Leeds	25 Aug 2021	England won by an innings and 76 runs

Dates are the first day of the match; in several cases the innings itself fell a day or two later.

The Adelaide morning

The 2020 Adelaide Test was a day-night match with the pink ball, and India had ended the second day 62 for 2, nine runs ahead, in a position that looked comfortable. The collapse took 74 balls. Cummins removed Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane; Hazlewood then took four wickets in nineteen deliveries at a cost of two runs. Eleven of the fourteen deliveries that produced wickets were on or just outside off stump at a length India kept playing at.

Australia needed 90 and lost Joe Burns for a duck before winning inside the third session. The series that followed is one of the reasons the innings is remembered without much bitterness in India: the same touring party, without Virat Kohli and eventually without Bumrah, Ashwin and Jadeja, won the next two Tests they had a result in and took the trophy at the Gabba. That series and the fixture's longer history are covered on the India versus Australia Test record page and in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy history.

Forty-six at the Chinnaswamy

Bengaluru in October 2024 is the only entry on this list made at home, and it took the home record down from 75 to 46 in a single morning. India chose to bat on a green surface under heavy cloud after a washed-out first day. Matt Henry took 5 for 15 from 13.3 overs and William O'Rourke 4 for 22. Rishabh Pant's 20 was the top score; five batters made ducks; the innings still lasted 31.2 overs, which tells you how little of it was aggressive.

New Zealand replied with 402, and although India made 462 in the second innings — the largest total any side has made after being dismissed for under 50 — New Zealand chased 107 with eight wickets standing. It was the first Test of a three-match series New Zealand won 3–0, India's first home series whitewash of that length. Ground records for the venue are on the M Chinnaswamy Stadium records page, and the fixture's history sits on the India versus New Zealand Test record.

The next tier: twelve more below 95

Total	Opponent	Ground	Season
81	New Zealand	Basin Reserve, Wellington	1975/76
81	West Indies	Kensington Oval, Bridgetown	1996/97
82	England	Old Trafford, Manchester	1952
83	England	Chepauk, Chennai	1976/77
83	New Zealand	Mohali	1999/00
88	New Zealand	Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai	1964/65
89	New Zealand	Hyderabad	1969/70
90	West Indies	Eden Gardens, Kolkata	1983/84
92	England	Edgbaston, Birmingham	1967
93	England	Lord's	1936
93 (9 wkts)	South Africa	Eden Gardens, Kolkata	14 Nov 2025
94	England	The Oval, London	15 Aug 2014

The 82 at Old Trafford in 1952 is the second half of the same Test as the 58: England declared on 347 for 9 and bowled India out twice inside two days, with Fred Trueman taking 8 for 31 in the first innings. It remains the only Test in which India have been dismissed twice for under 100.

The 93 at Eden Gardens in November 2025 is the most recent addition. India needed 124 to win, were 51 for 4 at one point, and Simon Harmer's 4 for 21 finished it; the innings ended nine down with one batter unable to come out. South Africa won by 30 runs and went on to take the series.

Three movements in eighty years

Unusually for a record of this kind, India's lowest completed Test total has barely moved. Since the Second World War it has changed hands three times.

The 58 at Brisbane in November 1947, in India's first Test on Australian soil, stood for twenty-six and a half years. Nothing India produced through the 1950s, 1960s or early 1970s went below it — the 58 at Old Trafford in 1952 equalled it, and the 66, 67 and 75 that appear above all came later. The 42 at Lord's in June 1974 then stood for forty-six years, through 300-odd Tests, until the Adelaide morning of December 2020 took nine runs off it.

Three movements in eighty years is a slow rate of change for any record, and it says something about how rare these innings are. India have played well over 500 Tests. Twenty-two of their innings have finished below 95, which is roughly one in fifty.

The overs column repays a second look for the same reason. The 76 at Ahmedabad in 2008 lasted twenty overs exactly, the shortest of the ten; the 78 at Headingley in 2021 lasted 40.4, with Rohit Sharma facing 105 balls for 19. Those two innings are three runs apart and took twice as long as each other, which is the difference between a side blown away and a side that dug in and still had nowhere to go.

What the decades show

Sorting the twenty-two innings by decade produces a shape that is not the one most people expect.

Decade	Innings under 95
1930s	1
1940s	2
1950s	2
1960s	3
1970s	3
1980s	2
1990s	3
2000s	1
2010s	1
2020s	4

The 2020s already hold more entries than any complete decade, and the decade is barely more than half over. That is not a claim about batting technique declining. Two of the four came in matches with a result inside three days on surfaces — Adelaide under lights, Bengaluru after a washout — that were doing far more than usual. The 1950s and 1960s figures come from a period when India were an inexperienced touring side losing heavily abroad; the 2020s figures come from a period in which India play more Tests, on more result-oriented pitches, than any generation before them.

The one genuinely quiet stretch is 2001 to 2019, two entries in nineteen years, which covers almost the entire careers of Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Sachin Tendulkar in the middle order.

Which attacks did it

England account for eight of the twenty-two, New Zealand for five, Australia, South Africa and West Indies for three each.

India have never been bowled out for under 100 in a Test by Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe or Afghanistan. Every sub-100 total in India's history has come against one of the five oldest opponents, and all but three came outside India. Seam and swing in England, pace and bounce in Australia, and the Durban and Bridgetown surfaces of the 1990s account for most of the list; the two spin-bowling entries, Chennai in 1976-77 and Kolkata in 2025, are the exceptions. The English side of that ledger is set out in more detail on the India versus England Test record, and the South African on the India versus South Africa Test record.

Two India survived

Being bowled out cheaply does not always cost the match, and two entries are worth separating out.

At Mohali in October 1999, India made 83 in the first innings against New Zealand, with Dion Nash taking six wickets, and won the Test by eight wickets — for many years the lowest first-innings total by a home side that went on to win a Test.

At the Wankhede in November 2004, India were dismissed for 104 in the first innings by Jason Gillespie and Nathan Hauritz, and still beat Australia by 13 runs on a pitch that produced four completed innings inside three days. That match is the anchor of the lowest totals India have defended list. Set against India's highest Test team totals and their biggest Test wins by runs, those two results are a reminder that a first-innings total in a Test is a starting position, not a verdict.

Sources and method

Totals from December 2001 onwards are computed from public ball-by-ball records of men's Test cricket, covering every India Test to those completed before 1 August 2026. Earlier entries are taken from published team-record listings and confirmed against individual match scorecards; the ten-row table above has had its overs, innings number and result checked match by match.

"Completed" means the innings ended with the side dismissed, including innings in which one batter was absent or unable to continue. Those are marked. Declared innings are excluded, which is why India's 8 for 0 at the Gabba in December 2024, and other tiny fourth-innings fragments played out before a draw, do not appear.

The decade table counts every India Test innings under 95, which is the point at which the historical record becomes reliably complete in the sources used. The claim that India have never been dismissed under 100 by Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe or Afghanistan follows from that same list. Bowling figures and individual scores are as recorded on the scorecards. Figures are current to 19 August 2026. For the wider context of Indian cricket, see the history of Test cricket in India and the cricket in India hub.