Whitewash meaning in cricket: What is whitewash in cricket series?

England won the third and final Test match against Pakistan at the National Stadium in Karachi by 8 wickets, to lift the three-match Test series.

Having lifted the T20 World Cup just a month ago, they now have yet another feather in their cap as they become the only side to defeat Pakistan 3-0 in a Test series at home.

Having scored a century (111) in the first innings of the Test, Harry Brook was adjudged the ‘Player of the Match’. Moreover, for being the highest run-scorer in the series – 468 runs across 5 innings, and at a jaw-dropping average of 93.60 with the help of three centuries and a half-century, Brook was also also handed the ‘Player of the Series’ award.

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If this was not it, the 23-year-old also went past the legendary Dawid Gower to smash the record for piling on the most runs in a Test series in Pakistan. Gower, had amassed 449 runs in the year 1983.

As far as the match proceedings on ‘Day 4’ is concerned, it took mere one hour for England to win the contest and score the remaining 55 runs to whitewash the hosts in the series.

Whitewash meaning in cricket

In the context of a Cricket series, if a team loses all the matches against their opposition, it is said that they have been whitewashed by the winning team.

In the aforementioned case, Pakistan have been whitewashed by England 0-3 in the three-match Test series. Or much simpler, England have whitewashed Pakistan 3-0 in the three-match series.

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This term in the context of sports originated from Baseball in the 19th century, when a team failed to score a single run against their opponent. With the team’s scoreboard remaining clean and blank, the beaten team was said to be whitewashed by the winning team.

Apart from whitewash, the term ‘clean sweep’ is also used used under similar circumstances for a team in the sport of Cricket.

About the author

Gurpreet Singh

Gurpreet Singh is a Cricket writer at The Sportsrush. His platonic relationship with sports had always been there since childhood, but Cricket managed to strike a special, intimate nerve of his heart. Although his initial dream of playing the sport at the highest level couldn't come to fruition, Gurpreet did represent the state of Jharkhand at the under-14 level. However, almost like taking a pledge to never let the undying passion for Cricket fade away even a tad, he made sure to continue the love relationship by assigning the field of journalism as an indirect Cupid. He thus, first finished his bachelor's in journalism and then pursued the PG Diploma course in English journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC). Soon after and since 2019, he has been working at The Sportsrush. Apart from sports, he takes keen interest in politics, and in understanding women and gender-related issues.

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