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Statistical highlights: Australia v Zimbabwe

By Rajneesh Gupta
January 27, 2004 22:31 IST

• This match was the 2089th Limited Overs International.

• Brad Haddin made a comeback into the Australian side after about three years. He had played a solitary match against Zimbabwe at Hobart on 30-01-2001, thus missing 83 matches in between his two consecutive appearances. Incidentally Brad Hogg holds the Australian record of missing most matches in between two consecutive appearances. Hogg missed 156 matches from 03-11-1996 to 22-12-2002. The LOI record is on the name of South African wicketkeeper Errol Stewart – with 218 missed matches.

• Travis Friend played in his 50th match. He became the 17th Zimbabwean and the 281st player overall to do so.

• Grant Flower (94) made his ninth score in the nineties. With this, he equalled Sri Lankan Aravinda de Silva's record of most nineties in LOIs. The break-up of Flower's nineties : 2 each vs England, West Indies, Pakistan and South Africa and one vs Australia. The accompanying table lists the leading 'ninety' scorers in LOIs :

Batsman

For

90s

99s

Mat

Inns

Start

End

PA de Silva

SL

9

0

308

296

31 Mar 1984

18 Mar 2003

GW Flower

Zim

9

0

215

209

25 Oct 1992

26 Jan 2004

SR Tendulkar

Ind

8

0

324

315

18 Dec 1989

18 Jan 2004

NJ Astle

NZ

7

0

174

171

22 Jan 1995

14 Mar 2003

M Azharuddin

Ind

7

0

334

308

20 Jan 1985

03 Jun 2000

RB Richardson

WI

6

1

224

217

17 Dec 1983

14 Mar 1996

DM Jones

Aus

6

1

164

161

30 Jan 1984

06 Apr 1994

MD Crowe

NZ

6

0

143

140

13 Feb 1982

26 Nov 1995

K Srikkanth

Ind

5

1

146

145

25 Nov 1981

15 Mar 1992

WJ Cronje

SA

5

0

188

175

26 Feb 1992

31 Mar 2000

• Grant Flower became the leading run-scorer for Zimbabwe against Australia during his career-best effort against Australia – his previous best against Australia was 89 at Delhi on 11-04-1998. At the end of this match, Flower has a tally of 562 runs from 18 matches against Australia which surpasses brother Andy's run-aggregate of 478 from 16 appearances.

• The ninth wicket unbroken partnership of 39 runs between Andy Blignaut and Ray Price is Zimbabwe's best for this wicket against Australia. The pair obliterated the previous record stand of 34 (unbroken) between Heath Streak and Paul Strang at Hobart on 08-12-1994.

• Ricky Ponting (63) made his 50th score of 50 or more. This includes 15 hundreds and 35 fifties. Ponting became the fourth Australian after Mark Waugh (68), Dean Jones (53) and Michael Bevan (51) and the 22nd batsman overall to do so. Incidentally Sachin Tendulkar – with 102 fifty-plus scores- holds the world record.

• The defeat was Zimbabwe's eighth in consecutive matches. Australia have now beaten Zimbabwe in 22 consecutive matches.

• Grant Flower won his 13th man of the match award.

Rajneesh Gupta

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