Records tumble as Afridi gives an encore

Stats highlights from the Bangladesh v Pakistan Asia Cup match in Mirpur

04-Mar-2014

Shahid Afridi goes over the top, Bangladesh v Pakistan, Asia Cup, Mirpur, March 4, 2014

This was Pakistan's highest successful run chase in ODIs, beating their previous-highest chase of 322 runs against India in Mohali in 2007. This is the first time Pakistan have successfully chased a target of 300 or more against a team other than India. Pakistan had chased such targets successfully only four times in ODIs before this.

Shahid Afridi muscled Pakistan to a win, yet again, with an 25-ball 59. His fifty in this innings came off just 18 deliveries - the second-fastest in ODIs. This is the third time Afridi has scored an ODI fifty in 18 deliveries. Sanath Jayasuirya holds the record for hitting the fastest ODI fifty - he took 17 deliveries to hit a fifty against Pakistan in 1996.

Afridi was declared the Man of the Match for his performance - his 32nd such award in ODIs. He has equalled Ricky Ponting and Jacques Kallis at No. 3 in the list of players to have won the most such awards in ODIs. He is four clear of the next Pakistan player in the list - Saeed Anwar, who won 28 Man-of-the-Match awards in his career.

Bangladesh's score of 326 was their highest in ODIs and only the sixth time they scored 300-plus in an ODI. Their previous highest was 320, against Zimbabwe in Bulawayo in 2009.

Afridi scored his runs at a strike of 236 - the seventh-fastest fifty-plus score in a chase. The fastest fifty-plus innings in a chase also belongs to Afridi. He hit an unbeaten 18-ball 55 against Netherlands in Colombo in 2002.

232 runs were scored in the last ten overs of this match (both innings combined) - that's the highest such aggregate in an ODI since 2000. The previous highest was the 229 runs scored in the famous ODI between South Africa and Australia in Johannesburg in 2006.

All the top four Bangladesh batsmen got fifty-plus scores in this match. This is the first such instance for Bangladesh in ODIs. Overall, there have been only 12 such instances in ODIs.

Anamul Haque hit his second ODI century in this match and only the 13th by a Bangladesh opener. The last Bangladesh opener to hit an ODI hundred was Tamim Iqbal, who hit 112 against Sri Lanka in Hambantota last year.

Shakib Al Hasan took 16 balls to hit 44 runs to finish Bangladesh's innings on a high. His strike rate in this innings equalled the fastest innings of 20 or more runs by a Bangladesh batsman. Mashrafe Mortaza also had a similar score batting against Kenya in an ODI in 2006.

The 150-run partnership between Imrul Kayes and Haque was Bangladesh's first century opening stand in 32 innings against Pakistan. Their previous highest against Pakistan was an 88 run-stand between Javed Omar and Mehrab Hossain in Dhaka in 2002.

This partnership was Bangladesh's second-highest opening partnership in ODIs and only their second partnership of 150 or more for the first wicket. Mehrab Hossain and Shahriar Hossain added 170 runs against Zimbabwe in Dhaka in 1999, which is the highest opening partnership for them. Including this one, Bangladesh have had only eight 150-plus partnerships in ODIs.

Pakistan opener Ahmed Shehzad's century in this match was his fifth in ODIs and the first by a Pakistan batsman against Bangladesh in a chase. Shehzad has scored 223 runs in this Asia Cup at 55.75, already his second-highest aggregate in any series.

Abdur Rahman had an extraordinary spell of bowling in this match, however brief. His first-three balls in the match were no-balled for being full tosses above the waist after which he was stopped from bowling further in the match. His three deliveries resulted in eight runs and his bowling figures for the match read 0-0-8-0. There have been three other such instances of a bowler showing up on the scorecard as having conceded runs without bowling a ball. The last such instance was when Bangladesh hit their winning runs off a no-ball from Kenya's Colins Obuya, who was bowling his first ball in the match.

In addition to Bangladesh's openers, both the Pakistan openers also scored fifty-plus, making this only the tenth instance in ODIs when all four opening batsmen have hit fifty or more in a match. The last such instance was the India-Australia match in Jaipur last year.

In all, eight fifty-plus scores were hit in this match, only the third time that these many were hit in an ODI. The last time this happened was in last year's Jaipur ODI between India and Australia.

Excluding Rahman, Misbah-ul-Haq bowled seven bowlers in this match and four of them went for 60-plus runs. This is only the third time ever that four of Pakistan's bowlers went for 60 or more in an innings. The last such instance came against South Africa in Centurion in 2007.

Bangladesh crossed 200 runs in this match for the fall of just one wicket. This was only the second such instance for them. The only other time Bangladesh have scored 200 runs before the fall of their second wicket in an ODI was against Zimbabwe in Dhaka in 1999.

Saeed Ajmal went for 61 runs off his ten overs - his most expensive spell bowling in ODIs in the subcontinent. Remarkably though, Ajmal's first six overs had gone only for nine runs. He had bowled three of those overs in the batting Powerplay, taking the wicket of Mominul Haque and giving away just five runs. In the death overs though, fortunes changed for Ajmal - he was hit for 52 runs off his remaining four overs, including nine boundaries.

Saeed Ajmal's spells
	dot-balls	4s	6s	Runs	Balls	Econ	Wkts
Spell 1	13	0	0	4	18	1.3	0
Spell 2 (Powerplay)	14	0	0	5	18	1.5	1
Spell 3 (last-ten)	4	8	1	52	24	13.0	1

Anamul Haque Shahid Afridi Abdur Rehman Ahmed Shehzad Fawad Alam Bangladesh Pakistan Bangladesh vs Pakistan Asia Cup

Shiva Jayaraman is a sub-editor (stats) ESPNcricinfo.com