diff --git a/solr/CHANGES.txt b/solr/CHANGES.txt
index 844cd159ac0..39b8b313e1e 100644
--- a/solr/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/solr/CHANGES.txt
@@ -312,6 +312,8 @@ Other Changes
 
 * SOLR-8352: randomise unload order in UnloadDistributedZkTest.testUnloadShardAndCollection (Christine Poerschke)
 
+* SOLR-8414: AbstractDistribZkTestBase.verifyReplicaStatus could throw NPE (Christine Poerschke)
+
 ==================  5.4.0 ==================
 
 Consult the LUCENE_CHANGES.txt file for additional, low level, changes in this release
diff --git a/solr/test-framework/src/java/org/apache/solr/cloud/AbstractDistribZkTestBase.java b/solr/test-framework/src/java/org/apache/solr/cloud/AbstractDistribZkTestBase.java
index 9d9812e81eb..648fe646b1d 100644
--- a/solr/test-framework/src/java/org/apache/solr/cloud/AbstractDistribZkTestBase.java
+++ b/solr/test-framework/src/java/org/apache/solr/cloud/AbstractDistribZkTestBase.java
@@ -224,9 +224,12 @@ public abstract class AbstractDistribZkTestBase extends BaseDistributedSearchTes
     while(maxIterations-->0) {
       Slice slice = reader.getClusterState().getSlice(collection, shard);
       if(slice!=null) {
-        coreState = slice.getReplicasMap().get(coreNodeName).getState();
-        if(coreState == expectedState) {
-          return;
+        Replica replica = slice.getReplicasMap().get(coreNodeName);
+        if (replica != null) {
+          coreState = replica.getState();
+          if(coreState == expectedState) {
+            return;
+          }
         }
       }
       Thread.sleep(50);