Stats: Zimbabwe vs New Zealand 3rd ODI; Williamson's obsession with the 90s

Williamson made 90 today

The final match of the series has concluded in favour of New Zealand after they scored 273-6 in the allotted 50 overs. Zimbabwe though was cruising towards the victory after the opening pair put up 97 while Craig Ervine and Sean Williams accumulated 45 runs for fourth wicket and once Ervine fell, no one stood with Sean Williams to support at the other end. Finally, Zimbabwe lost the match by 38 runs and series by 2-1. Here are some interesting numbers from the match.

27 – ODI games won by New Zealand against Zimbabwe. It was their 38th ODI against Zimbabwe and they have lost only 9.

6 – number of consecutive fifty-plus scores Kane Williamson has made in ODIs when he scored 97 in today’s game. Only Javed Miandad with 9 straight 50 plus scores in 1987 has more than Williamson, while Greenidge (WI), Jones (NZ) Steve Waugh (Aus) and Muhammad Yousuf, each have 6 such scores. Interestingly, he is the only player to feature in the list of 6 as well as 5 consecutive fifty-plus scores in ODIs. He gathered 50 plus runs in 5 straight innings- all of which were against India, and all in the month of January 2014.Nn

15.2 – innings/nervous nineties for Kane Williamson- the lowest for any batsman in ODI history with 4 or more such scores. Tendulkar has an average of 25 innings/90s score for his 18 nervous nineties.

5 – number of nervous nineties for Kane Williamson in this year- which is only second to Sachin Tendulkar’s 6 such figures. Interestingly, Tendulkar was dismissed in 90s twice against each of these teams: Pakistan, England and South Africa in 2007.

97 – runs gathered by the opening pair- Chibabha and Masakadza- of Zimbabwe in today’s game. It is their highest opening partnership versus New Zealand in an ODI game since 2000, and 2nd joint highest for all times. Interestingly, the 3rd on the list (74) also came in this series.

58 – is the average of opening partnership of Chibabha and Masazkadza in 3 innings against New Zealand. The pair collected 174 runs for the first wicket in this series while in the last ten years, prior to this series, Zimbabwe gathered 136 runs averaging 15.11 in 9 innings for their 1st wicket, with 7 single figure scores.

273-6 – New Zealand’s total for today’s game; which is their 5th highest vs Zimbabwe in Zimbabwe.

37 – number of times Zimbabwe has been asked to chase a target of 274 or more including today’s game in the last ten years. Zimbabwe have been successful only in 4 games chasing 274 or more runs, and interestingly, twice they have done it against New Zealand, and even more surprisingly, both times it was more than 300 which they chased down- the recent being 304 in the first ODI of this series. Overall, 78 times Zimbabwe have been given a target of 274 or more in ODIs, and they succeeded only on eight occasions with thrice against both New Zealand and India.