South Africa retains one-day supremacy (4 January 1999)

4 January 1999

South Africa retains one-day supremacy

By M. Shoaib Ahmed

South Africa topped in the 1998 One-day International cricket calendar. Out of 22 matches it played over a period of twelve months, 17 were won and just five were lost to return a healthy success percentage of 77.27%. The second placed team in 1998 was former World Champion West Indies with 6 wins from 8 matches for a success percentage of 75.00%. Pakistan was as placed sixth in the 1998 one-day International cricket out of 26 matches it played over a period of nearly twelve months, 12 were won and 16 were lost to return a very poor average of 46.15%.

A total of 108 one-day Internationals were played in the months from January to November 1998 as compared to the 115 matches almost in the same period in 1997.

The season's batting average was topped by India's 'Master Blaster' Sachin Tendulkar who finished at the head of the table with 1894 (new record) runs scored at 65.31 per innings. He scored 9 hundreds (new record) and 7 fifties. The next highest aggregate of runs, however, was also scored by India's Saurav Ganguly whose 1328 runs completed in 36 matches at an average of 41.50. Mohammad Azharuddin (India), Ricky Ponting (Australia) and Ajay Jadeja (India) also scored 1,000 runs.

The bowling was headed by India's Ajit Agarkar who grabbed 58 wickets in 30 matches at a mere 23.79 runs apiece. Seventeen other bowlers, apart from Agarkar, achieved the 20-wicket mark.

Source :: Dawn (https://dawn.com/)