- It was the 1743rd ODI in cricket history.
- It was India’s 475th and New Zealand’s 385th match and 61st betweenthese two sides. The record now reads : India 31, New Zealand27,abandoned 3.
- Umpires LV Jayasundara and TH Wijewardene were officiating in theirseventh and sixth match respectively.
- The 138 run-partnership between Nathan Astle and Stephen Fleming wasNew Zealand’s best for the second wicket against India in all matches.This obliterated the previous best of 130 between Bruce Edgar andMartin Crowe at Brisbane on January 11,1986.
- The partnership was also New Zealand’s second highest for the secondwicket in all matches after the 141 run-partnership between MatthewBell and Matthew Sinclair against Sri Lanka at Sharjah on April17,2001.
- This was the 20th century partnership in which Astle was featuring.His break-up of century stands : 6 for the first wicket, 7 for thesecond wicket, 6 for the third and one for the fourth wicket. Astlebecame the first New Zealander to get involved in 20 centurypartnerships. Incidentally, the ODI record is in the name of India’sSachin Tendulkar who has featured in 47 century partnerships.
- Nathan Astle (101) recorded his 11th ODI hundred – his fourth againstIndia. He has now scored maximum centuries for New Zealand againstIndia. Astle was previously level with Chris Cairns with threecenturies.
- Adam Parore was recording his third consecutive duck. He became thefourth New Zealander to suffer this fate after Tony Blain (in 1986),Danny Morrison (in 1990) and Richard DeGroen (in 1994). Parore is nowin line to equal the ODI record of four consecutive ducks, hithertoshared by West Indian Gus Logie, Sri Lankan Pramodya Wickremasinghe,Zimbabwean Henry Olonga and Englishman Craig White.
- This was also the second time Parore aggregated three ducks in aseries (or tournament). Parore had also recorded three ducks in thefive match series against Pakistan in 2000-01. Parore became the thirdbatsman to aggregate three ducks in a series on two occasions aftertwo Sri Lankans Romesh Kaluwitharana and Arjuna Ranatunga.
- Virender Shewag (100) reached his fifty off just 29 balls – thefastest fifty for India against New Zealand. He bettered Kapil Dev andAjay Sharma’s record by one ball. They had scored 54* at Sydney onMarch 5,1985 and 52* at Indore on December 15,1988 respectively.
- Shewag needed only 69 balls to score his maiden ODI hundred. Hishundred was the second fastest for India (after Mohammad Azharuddin’s62-ball hundred against New Zealand) and seventh fastest in all ODIs.The details :
Fastest hundreds in ODIs :
Balls | Batsman | Opponents | Venue | Date |
37 | Shahid Afridi (102) | Pak v SL | Nairobi Gym | 04-10-1996 |
45 | BC Lara (117) | WI v BD | Dhaka | 09-10-1999 |
48 | ST Jayasuriya (134) | SL v Pak | Singapore | 02-04-1996 |
62 | M Azharuddin (108*) | Ind v NZ | Baroda | 17-12-1988 |
67 | Basit Ali (127*) | Pak v WI | Sharjah | 05-11-1993 |
68 | Ijaz Ahmed (139*) | Pak v Ind | Lahore | 02-10-1997 |
69 | V Shewag (100) | v NZ | Colombo SSC | 02-08-2001 |
71 | SR Tendulkar (124*) | Ind v Zim | Sharjah | 13-11-1998 |
72 | Zaheer Abbas (118) | Pak v Ind | Multan | 17-12-1982 |
72 | IVA Richards (149) | WI v Ind | Jamshedpur | 07-12-1983 |
72 | ST Jayasuriya (108) | SL v BD | Colombo SSC | 22-07-1997 |
72 | RL Powell (124) | WI v Ind | Singapore | 08-09-1999 |
73 | Javed Miandad (119*) | Pak v Ind | Lahore | 31-12-1982 |
75 | IVA Richards (110*) | WI v Ind | Rajkot | 05-01-1988 |
75 | CL Cairns (115) | NZ v Ind | Christchurch | 19-01-1999 |
75 | CD McMillan (104*) | NZ v Pak | Christchurch | 25-02-2001 |
- Shewag’s innings included 20 shots to the fence – 19 fours and a six,giving him a whopping boundary percentage of 82.00 .A detailed studyinto all 554 ODI hundreds scored till date reveals the fact thatShewag’s percentage is the fourth highest in the game. This is easilythe best performance by an Indian. Sachin Tendulkar had scored 67.74runs in boundaries during his unbeaten knock of 124* against Zimbabweat Sharjah on November 13,1998. The following table has the details :
Highest percentage of boundary shots : | |||||
(Minimum Qualification : 100 runs) | |||||
% | Runs | Batsman | Countries | Venue | Date |
88.23 | 90/102 | Shahid Afridi | Pak v SL | Nairobi Gym | 04-10-1996 |
82.08 | 110/134 | ST Jayasuriya | SL v Pak | Singapore | 02-04-1996 |
82.05 | 96/117 | BC Lara | WI v BD | Dhaka | 09-10-1999 |
82.00 | 82/100 | V Shewag | Ind v NZ | Colombo SSC | 02-08-2001 |
75.43 | 86/114* | Ijaz Ahmed | Pak v SA | Durban | 17-12-1994 |
74.00 | 74/100* | RS Kaluwitharana | SL v Ken | Nairobi Gym | 28-09-1996 |
74.00 | 74/100 | PA Wallace | WI v SA | Dhaka | 01-11-1998 |
72.26 | 86/119* | IVA Richards | WI v Eng | Scarborough | 26-08-1976 |
- Saurav Ganguly (64) scored his 40th fifty (excluding 16 hundreds) inhis 173rd match. He became the third Indian after Mohammad Azharuddin(58) and Sachin Tendulkar (53) and 18th batsman in the game’s historyto reach this milestone. Incidentally Pakistan’s Inzamam-ul-Haq,with60 fifties, holds the ODI record.
- Shewag was winning his second Man of the Match award.
