diff --git a/bin/tests/system/statistics/clean.sh b/bin/tests/system/statistics/clean.sh
index a1fc8d0288..ac11bce7db 100644
--- a/bin/tests/system/statistics/clean.sh
+++ b/bin/tests/system/statistics/clean.sh
@@ -28,4 +28,4 @@ rm -f curl.out.*
 rm -f stats*out
 rm -f ns*/managed-keys.bind*
 rm -f xsltproc.out.*
-rm -f named.stats.* ns*/named.stats.*
+rm -f named.stats.* ns*/named.stats.* ns*/named.recursing
diff --git a/bin/tests/system/statistics/tests.sh b/bin/tests/system/statistics/tests.sh
index a840d9e27b..5f2a719672 100644
--- a/bin/tests/system/statistics/tests.sh
+++ b/bin/tests/system/statistics/tests.sh
@@ -98,6 +98,10 @@ getstats() {
   grep "2 recursing clients" $last_stats >/dev/null || return 1
 }
 retry_quiet 5 getstats || ret=1
+# confirm agreement with 'rndc recursing'
+$RNDCCMD -s 10.53.0.3 recursing || ret=1
+lines=$(grep -c "; client .*(tcp)" ns3/named.recursing || true)
+[ "$lines" -eq 2 ] || ret=1
 if [ $ret != 0 ]; then echo_i "failed"; fi
 status=$((status + ret))
 n=$((n + 1))