• This was the 2025th one-day international match in cricket history.
• This was England’s 372nd and Pakistan’s 559th match.
• This was the 51st match between these two sides. The record now reads : England 29, Pakistan 21, abandoned one.
• Michael Vaughan was leading England for the first time in an ODI. He became 24th player to captain England in ODIs.
• Robbi Clarke, Anthony McGrath and Jamie Troughton were making their ODI debut. Now 176 players have represented England in the shorter version of the game at the international level.
• David Shepherd and Darrel Hair were officiating in their 131st and 86th match respectively. <
• Clarke became the 13th Englishman to suffer the ignominy of getting a duck in debut innings. He, however, later made for this lapse by taking a wicket off his first ball when he had Imran Nazir caught by Solanki. He became second Englishman after Geoff Arnold (v Australia at Old Trafford on 24-08-1972) to get a wicket off the very first ball of their ODI career.
• The two-wicket victory margin equals Pakistan’s narrowest against England. They had won at Trent Bridge on 01-09-1996 by an identical margin.

(Article: Copyright © 2003 Rajneesh Gupta)