Statistical Highlights: Ind-Aus, 1st final

February 07, 2004 19:39 IST

This match was the 2097th Limited Overs International in cricket history.
Sachin Tendulkar, the proud holder of the world record of aggregating the most runs in finals / grand finals of LOI tournaments, has now not scored a fifty in last eight finals / grand finals. Tendulkar's tally in last eight finals reads rather unimpressive 100 runs at an average of 14.28 with a highest of 45.
Rahul Dravid set a new world record of playing most consecutive innings without recording a duck. Dravid has now played 120 consecutive innings without getting dismissed for a duck to move ahead of New Zealander Martin Crowe's tally of 119 consecutive 'duckless' innings.
Dravid (12) completed 7000 runs in LOIs when his score reached 10. He became fourth Indian after Sachin Tendulkar (12894 runs in 327 matches), Mohammad Azharuddin (9378 in 334) and Sourav Ganguly (9141 in 243) and 15th batsman in the world to achieve this feat. Dravid was playing his 223rd match and 204th innings.
The seventh-wicket partnership of 102 runs between Hemang Badani and Ajit Agarkar is India's highest for this wicket against all countries. The pair surpassed the previous record stand of exactly 100 between Sourav Ganguly and Sunil Joshi also against Australia at Colombo SSC on 06-09-1996.
Ajit Agarkar (53) became only Indian batsman to score two fifties at number 8 in LOIs. His other fifty was against Zimbabwe (67* off 25 balls) at Rajkot on 14-12-2000.Kapil Dev, Sunil Joshi and Syed Saba Karim are the others to score a fifty each for India while batting at number eight.

Anil Kumble was run-out for the 20th time in his career. Among the Indians only Mohammad Azharuddin, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid have been dismissed on more occasions in this fashion, while Robin Singh was also run-out on 20 occasions in his career. The accompanying table lists the Indian batsmen who have been run-out on most occasions :

Run-outs	Batsman	Completed Innings	%
32	M Azharuddin	254	12.60
25	SR Tendulkar	287	8.71
23	R Dravid	179	12.85
20	RR Singh	90	22.22
20	A Kumble	83	24.10
18	M Prabhakar	77	23.38
18	A Jadeja	143	12.59
17	NS Sidhu	119	14.29
17	SC Ganguly	215	7.91
15	RJ Shastri	107	14.02
15	VG Kambli	76	19.74
15	J Srinath	83	18.07

Kumble's frequency of run-outs is 24.10 %, that is, almost one run-out dismissal out of four completed innings. It is the highest run-out frequency among the Indians. The table has the details :

% of dismissals	Run-out	Completed Innings	Batsman
24.10	20	83	A Kumble
23.38	18	77	M Prabhakar
23.33	14	60	SV Manjrekar
22.22	20	90	RR Singh
20.93	9	43	KS More
19.74	15	76	VG Kambli
19.05	12	63	NR Mongia
18.52	10	54	AB Agarkar
18.07	15	83	J Srinath
16.95	10	59	VVS Laxman

In all LOIs, among the batsmen who have played 50 or more 'completed' innings, only two - Australia's Ian Healy (25.00 %) and Craig McDermott (24.59%) - have the higher run-out frequency than Kumble.
Matthew Hayden (50) completed his 3000 runs in LOIs when his score reached 48. He is the 12th Australian and 79th batsman overall to do so. Hayden was playing his 88th match and 84th innings.
Ricky Ponting (88) completed his 3000 runs on Australian soil. He became seventh batsman to do so. Ponting now has a tally of 3078 runs from 84 'home' games. Dean Jones, who scored 4069 runs in 107 matches in Australia, heads the table. Desmond Haynes is the only non-Australian to achieve this feat.
Ponting was winning his 18th Man of the Match award equalling the tally of Allan Border. Now only Mark Waugh (22) and Steve Waugh (21) have won more awards for Australia.
The award was fourth for Ponting in final / grand final of a LOI tournament. His other awards were against South Africa in third final of 1997-98 Carlton & United Series, against Pakistan in second final of 1999-00 Carlton & United Series and against India in the final of 2002-03 World Cup.
Ponting has now won most awards in finals / grand finals for Australia. He was earlier at level with Dean Jones with three MoM awards.

Rajneesh Gupta