Records galore for Finch and Australia

Stats highlights from an incredible Twenty20 game in Southampton, where 457 runs were scored in 40 overs and seven bowlers conceded 40 or more

S Rajesh

30-Aug-2013

Aaron Finch hit some outrageous shots in his innings, England v Australia, 1st T20, Ageas Bowl, August 29, 2013

The match aggregate of 457 is the highest in a Twenty20 international, 29 runs more than the previous record, a tied match between New Zealand and Australia in Christchurch in 2010 that produced 428 runs. This is the ninth instance of a 400-plus aggregate in a Twenty20 international.

For the first time in a Twenty20 international, there were two century partnerships in an innings: Aaron Finch added 114 for the second wicket with Shaun Marsh (in which Marsh's contribution was 28), and 101 for the third wicket with Shane Watson, who scored 37.

The 101-run stand between Finch and Watson came at a rate of 14.78 runs per over, the second-fastest 100-plus stand in this format. The fastest was by Chris Gayle and Kieron Pollard, who struck 108 off 6.5 overs (which was also the duration of the Finch-Watson stand) against New Zealand in Lauderhill last year. The Finch-Marsh stand of 114 came at a rate of 12.43, the sixth-fastest.

Finch's 156 is 33 more than the previous highest in Twenty20 internationals: Brendon McCullum's 123 was the previous best, against Bangladesh in Pallekele in the 2012 World Twenty20. Finch also created a record for the most sixes in an innings (14), going one better than Richard Levi's previous record.

The only bowler who managed to restrict Finch to a strike rate of less than 200 was Jade Dernbach, who conceded 13 runs from seven balls. Against all the other bowlers, Finch scored at a strike rate of more than 200, with Joe Root suffering the most, going for 26 off five balls (strike rate of 520). Dernbach also finished as the only bowler to go at less than 9.50 runs per over, conceding only 34 in his four overs, and taking three wickets as well.

Eighteen sixes in an innings, which Australia managed at the Rose Bowl, is also the highest in an innings, one more than what South Africa had managed against England in Centurion in 2009.

Joe Root's unbeaten 90 is the joint second highest in a losing cause in a T20I; the only higher score is Gayle's 117 against South Africa in the first match of the 2007 World Twenty20 in Johannesburg. David Warner had also scored 90 not out in a defeat against Sri Lanka in Sydney earlier this year. It's also the fifth-highest score in a run-chase in this format.

With 457 runs being scored in 40 overs, this clearly wasn't a game for the bowlers: seven of them - Steven Finn, Stuart Broad and Danny Briggs for England; Mitchell Johnson, Josh Hazlewood, Fawad Ahmed and Shane Watson for Australia - conceded 40 or more runs, the first such instance in a T20I. It could have been eight, but James Faulkner stopped one run short of that mark. There had been one previous instance of six bowlers going for 40 or more, in that tied game between New Zealand and Australia in Christchurch in 2010 which produced 428 runs.

Joe Root Aaron Finch Australia England England vs Australia Australia tour of England and Scotland

S Rajesh is stats editor of ESPNcricinfo. Follow him on Twitter