• This match was the 2091st Limited Over International in cricket history.
• Blessing Mahwire was making his debut. He became 77th player to represent Zimbabwe in shorter version of the game.
• Tatenda Taibu was playing his 50th match. He became 18th Zimbabwean and 282nd player to do so.
• This match was the 63rd abandoned match in LOIs. Australia and Zimbabwe have now been involved in 14 and 8 abandoned matches respectively. Incidentally India hold the record of being involved in most such matches – 23. It was also the first abandoned match between Australia and Zimbabwe out of the 24 contested in between the two. The accompanying table gives country-wise break-up of abandoned matches :

  Country    Total  Aus  Eng   NZ  Pak   WI  Ind   SL  Zim   SA  Ken  Ban
  India         23    3    2    4    4    1    x    7    -    2    -    -
  New Zealand   20    3    3    x    1    3    4    2    1    3    -    -
  Sri Lanka     16    2    -    2    2    1    7    x    1    1    -    -
  Australia     14    x    1    3    3    1    3    2    1    -    -    -
  Pakistan      12    3    1    1    x    -    4    2    1    -    -    -
  England       11    1    x    3    1    3    2    -    1    -    -    -
  West Indies   11    1    3    3    -    x    1    1    -    -    -    2
  Zimbabwe       8    1    1    1    1    -    -    1    x    1    2    -
  South Africa   7    -    -    3    -    -    2    1    1    x    -    -
  Kenya          2    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    2    -    x    -
  Bangladesh     2    -    -    -    -    2    -    -    -    -    -    x
  TOTAL         63   14   11   20   12   11   23   16    8    7    2    2
  

• Ricky Ponting (35 off 58 balls) completed his 2000 runs as Australia’s captain. He became fourth Australian (after Allan Border, Steve Waugh and Mark Taylor) and 15th player in the world to do so. The following table lists the leading run-scoring captains in LOIs :

  Captain          For   Mts   Inns  NO   Runs    HS     Ave   100   50   0
  A Ranatunga      SL    193   183   34   5606   131*   37.62    4   37  14
  M Azharuddin     Ind   174   162   29   5239   153*   39.39    4   37   6
  AR Border        Aus   178   165   27   4439   127*   32.17    2   27   6
  ST Jayasuriya    SL    118   118    5   4377   189    38.73   10   25   8
  SC Ganguly       Ind   112   109   11   4194   144    42.80   11   24   6
  SP Fleming       NZ    152   145   13   4154   134*   31.47    4   23   6
  WJ Cronje        SA    138   128   20   4070    94    37.69    -   31   6
  Imran Khan       Pak   139   122   29   3247   102*   34.91    1   18   2
  IVA Richards     WI    106    92   11   3203   181    39.54    3   23   3
  SR Waugh         Aus   106    89   15   2585   120*   34.93    2   16   8
  SR Tendulkar     Ind    73    70    5   2454   186*   37.75    6   12   4
  ADR Campbell     Zim    86    84    8   2207   102    29.04    2   14   4
  MA Taylor        Aus    67    65    1   2098   105    32.78    1   15   2
  RB Richardson    WI     87    83   13   2042   122    29.17    2   10   -
  RT Ponting       Aus    61    57   10   2005   140*   42.66    7    7   2
  

• As many as seven batsmen crossed 20 during Australian innings. This equals the existing LOI record of most individual scores of at least 20 in a team’s innings. This record has now been made on 11 occasions with Australia doing so on five occasions.
• Brad Haddin (32 off 46 balls) posted his best LOI score surpassing the 14 also against Zimbabwe at Adelaide on 26-01-2004.

(Article: Copyright © 2004 Rajneesh Gupta)