• This match was the 2089th Limited Over International in cricket history.
• Brad Haddin was making a comeback into Australian side after about three years. He had played a solitary match against Zimbabwe at Hobart on 30-01-2001, thus missing 83 matches in between his two consecutive appearances. Incidentally Brad Hogg holds the Australian record of missing most matches in between two consecutive appearances. Hogg missed 156 matches from 03-11-1996 to 22-12-2002. The LOI record is on the name of South African wicketkeeper Errol Stewart – with 218 missed matches.
• Travis Friend was playing his 50th match. He became 17th Zimbabwean and 281st player overall to do so.
• Grant Flower (94) made his ninth score in ninety. With this he equalled Sri Lanka’s Aravinda de Silva’s record of most nineties in LOIs. The break-up of Flower’s nineties : 2 each vs England, West Indies, Pakistan and South Africa and one vs Australia. The accompanying table lists the leading ‘ninety’ scorers in LOIs :

  Batsman        For  90s 99s  Mts  Inns    Start          End
  PA de Silva    SL    9   0   308   296    31 Mar 1984    18 Mar 2003
  GW Flower      Zim   9   0   215   209    25 Oct 1992    26 Jan 2004
  SR Tendulkar   Ind   8   0   324   315    18 Dec 1989    18 Jan 2004
  NJ Astle       NZ    7   0   174   171    22 Jan 1995    14 Mar 2003
  M Azharuddin   Ind   7   0   334   308    20 Jan 1985    03 Jun 2000
  RB Richardson  WI    6   1   224   217    17 Dec 1983    14 Mar 1996
  DM Jones       Aus   6   1   164   161    30 Jan 1984    06 Apr 1994
  MD Crowe       NZ    6   0   143   140    13 Feb 1982    26 Nov 1995
  K Srikkanth    Ind   5   1   146   145    25 Nov 1981    15 Mar 1992
  WJ Cronje      SA    5   0   188   175    26 Feb 1992    31 Mar 2000
  

• Grant Flower became the leading run-scorer for Zimbabwe against Australia during his career-best effort against Australia – his previous best against Australia was 89 at Delhi on 11-04-1998. At the end of this match, Flower has a tally of 562 runs from 18 matches against Australia which surpasses brother Andy’s run-aggregate of 478 from 16 appearances.
• The ninth wicket unbroken partnership of 39 runs between Andy Blignaut and Ray Price is Zimbabwe’s best for this wicket against Australia. The pair obliterated the previous record stand of 34 (unbroken) between Heath Streak and Paul Strang at Hobart on 08-12-1994.
• Ricky Ponting (63) made his 50th score of 50 or more. This includes 15 hundreds and 35 fifties. Ponting became fourth Australian after Mark Waugh (68), Dean Jones (53) and Michael Bevan (51) and 22nd batsman overall to do so. Incidentally Sachin Tendulkar – with 102 fifty-plus scores- holds the world record.
• The defeat was Zimbabwe’s eighth in consecutive matches. Australia have now beaten Zimbabwe in 22 consecutive matches.
• Grant Flower was winning his 13th man of the match award.

(Article: Copyright © 2004 Rajneesh Gupta)