Declaration Guidelines in Test Cricket

This paper considers the decision problem of when to declare during the third innings of a test cricket match. There are various factors that affect the decision of the declaring team including the target score, the number of overs remaining, the relative desire to win versus draw, and the scoring characteristics of the particular match. Decision rules are developed and these are assessed against historical matches. We observe that there are discrepancies between the optimal time to declare and what takes place in practice.