• This match was 2085th Limited Overs International in cricket history.
• This match was India’s 550th and Zimbabwe’s 249th match. India became only the third team to play 550 matches after Pakistan (581) and Australia (555).
• Anil Kumble was playing his 250th match. He became third Indian after Mohammad Azharuddin (334) and Sachin Tendulkar (324) and 13th player overall to do so.
• Grant Flower was playing his 213th match. With this he equalled brother Andy’s record of appearing in most LOIs for Zimbabwe.
• Parthiv Patel was opening the innings for India for the first time in his career. India have now used three different combinations for opening the innings in their first four matches of this tournament. Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar opened the innings in first two matches against Australia and Zimbabwe respectively, Ganguly and Tendulkar then opened in the third match against Australia…..and now Patel and Ganguly.
• At 18 years 317 days Patel became the youngest player to open the innings for India in a Limited Overs International match. Before Patel, Vinod Kambli was holding this record. Kambli opened the innings for India against Pakistan at Sharjah on 23-10-1991 (while making 40) at the age of 19 years 278 days.
• Mark Vermeulen became third Zimbabwean batsman to get retired hurt in a LOI after Kevin Arnott (v West Indies at this same ground on 29-02-1992) and Mark Dekker (v Sri Lanka at Harare on 06-11-1994).
• Vermeulen also became fifth batsman to be forced to retire hurt in a match against India. The others are : Pakistan’s Zahid Fazal (at Sharjah on 25-10-1991), Sri Lanka’s Roshan Mahanama (at Moratuwa on 14-08-1993 and also at Calcutta on 13-03-1996), Pakistan’s Rameez Raja (at Toronto on 17-09-1997) and South Africa’s Herschelle Gibbs (at Colombo RPS on 25-09-2002).
• Sourav Ganguly (33 runs & 3-55) became first player to perform the allround feat of scoring 30-plus runs and capturing three wickets in same match on two occasions against Zimbabwe. Ganguly had made 71* besides taking 5 for 34 at Kanpur on 11-12-2000.
• Ganguly has now scored 30-plus runs and captured three wickets in same match on five occasions. Apart from the two against Zimbabwe, the other such instances came vs Pakistan (54* & 3-33) at Toronto on 12-09-1998, vs Sri Lanka (130* & 4-21) at Nagpur on 22-03-1999 and vs England (40 & 3-27) at Birmingham on 29-05-1999. Ganguly has now equalled Kapil Dev’s record of performing this allround feat on most occasions for India. The world record is held by Pakistan’s Wasim Akram who did so on no less than 10 occasions.
• Yuvraj Singh (69) seems to have developed a knack of winning India a match every time he hits a fifty. This was his 14th fifty-plus knock (including one hundred). On 13 occasions India have emerged victorious. The only time India did not win a match despite a fifty from Yuvraj was against West Indies at Vijaywada on 24-11-2002. India lost that match by 135 runs.
• The win was India’s sixth in successive matches against Zimbabwe.
• Yuvraj Singh was winning his sixth man of the match award.

(Article: Copyright © 2004 Rajneesh Gupta)