A world record for Shahid Afridi

In one of the best displays of power-hitting, Shahid Afridi just tore the Indian bowling apart in the Kanpur one-dayer. It took Afridi only 45 balls to reach his hundred, which is the fastest hundred against India and the second joint fastest hundred in all ODIs after his own 37-ball hundred against Sri Lanka (in 1996-97) and alongwith Brian Lara (v Bangladesh at Dhaka in 1999-00.

However the most significant aspect of Afridi’s brutal innings for me was the number of boundaries hit by him. During his stay at the wicket Afridi hit 10 fours and nine sixes, which means 94 runs came in boundaries alone out of an innings of 102 - an incredible 92.15% !!!

A thorough research into the details of all the 756 hundreds reveals the fact that Afridi's performance is the best ever in ODI history. The previous record was also held by Shahid Afridi himself. Afridi had made 88.24% of his runs in boundaries during his record breaking 102 against Sri Lanka at Nairobi in 1996-97.

Last ball defeat for India

Pakistan registered a remarkable win over India to level the series 2-2 in the fourth ODI at Ahmedabad. The match also provided the fifth instance of a side achieving the winning target against India off the last possible ball of the match. Interestingly three times out of five such instances Pakistan have inflicted the defeat including that famous last ball six by Javed Miandad in the Australasian Cup final in 1985-86.

The following table lists all instances of last ball defeats for India:

Opp Total      India's Total Venue        Date
Pak 248-9 (50)  245-7 (50)  Sharjah    18 Apr 1986
Eng 224-6 (48)  223-3 (48)  Jaipur     18 Jan 1993
Pak 196-8 (49)  195 (48.5)  Brisbane   10 Jan 2000
WI  285-6 (50)  283-6 (50)  Jamshedpur 06 Nov 2002
Pak 319-7 (48)  315-6 (48)  Ahmedabad  12 Apr 2005

Atapattu’s feat

Marvan Atapattu, by scoring 127 against New Zealand in the first Test match at Napier, joined the selected band of cricketers who have managed to score at least a century against all other Test playing countries. Atapattu is the fifth member of this exclusive club which includes Australia’s Steve Waugh, South Africa’s Gary Kirsten and India’s Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar.

It rained fours and sixes in Visakhapatnam

It was amazing to see so many fours and sixes being hit in the Visakhapatnam match between India and Pakistan. Indian batsmen hit 34 fours and nine sixes and Pakistan paid back with 28 fours and seven sixes. In all 344 runs came in boundaries in the entire match! There has been only one better effort than this in the history of One-Day Internationals.

In the World Cup 1996 match between Sri Lanka and Kenya, 378 runs came off in fours and sixes with Sri Lanka scoring as many as 256 runs from boundary shots.