2015 ICC World Cup: India v Ireland - Stats of the match

India cruised to their fifth consecutive win in the ongoing World Cup, defeating Ireland by 8 wickets at Seddon Park in Hamilton on Tuesday. Opting to bat first, the Irish side posted 259 runs on the board with Niall O’Brien top scoring with 75. Off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin was once against India’s most economical bowler with figures of 2 for 38 in his 10 overs. In reply, Shikhar Dhawan (100 off 85) and Rohit Sharma (64 off 66) put together a record partnership of 174 runs before being sent back to the pavilion, which helped India seal the game in 36.5 overs.Here are the most important stats from the match:

#1 Most ODIs as Indian captain

MS Dhoni now holds the record for captaining the most number of ODIs for India. The game against Ireland on Tuesday was the 33-year-old’s 175th game as skipper; he overtook Mohammad Azharuddin, who captained India in 174 ODIs.

Among the top 5 Indian captains, Dhoni has the best winning percentage as indicated by the table below.

Sl.No	Player	Matches	Won	Lost	Tied	No result	Win%
1.	MS Dhoni	175	98	62	4	11	60.97
2.	Mohammad Azharuddin	174	90	76	2	6	54.16
3.	Sourav Ganguly	147	76	66	0	4	53.52
4.	Rahul Dravid	79	42	33	0	4	56
5.	Sachin Tendulkar	73	23	43	1	6	35.07

#2 Highest Indian World Cup opening stand

After the bowlers dismissed Ireland for 259, Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma all but sealed India’s fifth consecutive win in the World Cup by putting on a 174-run partnership for the first wicket. This is now the highest opening stand for India in their World Cup history, overtaking Sachin Tendulkar and Ajay Jadeja’s 163-run stand against Kenya at Cuttack in 1996.

It is also the highest first wicket partnership in the current edition of the tournament, beating Ian Bell and Moeen Ali’s 172-run partnership during England’s game against Scotland in Christchurch on February 23.

Sl.No.	Players	Partnership	Opposition	Venue
1.	Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma	174	Ireland	Hamilton
2.	Sachin Tendulkar and Ajay Jadeja	163	Kenya	Cuttack
3.	Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar	153	Sri Lanka	Johannesburg
4.	Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar	142	South Africa	Nagpur
5.	Sunil Gavaskar and Kris Srikkanth	136	New Zealand	Nagpur

#3 Second fastest to 8 ODI hundreds

The century against Ireland today is Shikhar Dhawan’s 8th in ODIs. The left-hander reached the mark in his 57th innings, which makes him the second fastest player to achieve the feat. South African stalwart Hashim Amla tops the list having achieved the feat in only 43 innings.

Interestingly, on each of those eight occasions when Dhawan has reached the three-figure mark, India have ended up on the winning side.

He was also adjudged as the player of the match for his effort.

Sl.No.	Player Name	Number of innings
1.	Hashim Amla	43
2.	Shikhar Dhawan	57
3.	Salman Butt	61
4.	Virat Kohli	68

#4 4000 runs in ODIs

Rohit Sharma crossed the 4000-run mark in ODIs today. The 27-year-old got to the mark in his 126th innings, courtesy a six off the bowling of George Dockrell. He has now scored 4033 runs in 131 ODIs with 6 hundreds and 24 fifties.

Here is a list of some of the best Indian batsmen and the number of matches they took to score 4000 runs (Rohit is the slowest among them):

Sl.no.	Player	Number of innings
1.	Virat Kohli	93
2.	Sourav Ganguly	105
3.	Navjot Sidhu	109
4.	Gautam Gambhir	110
5.	Sachin Tendulkar	112
6.	MS Dhoni	114
7.	Rahul Dravid	117
8.	Rohit Sharma	126

#5 World Cup winning streak

With yet another commanding win in the ongoing World Cup, MS Dhoni has now gone past Sourav Ganguly’s 8-match winning streak in World Cup ODIs. India have been undefeated in World Cups ever since they beat the West indies in the 2011 edition of the tournament in Chennai; including that game, they have now won 9 consecutive games under Dhoni’s captaincy.

With 12 wins, Dhoni is also India’s most successful skipper in India’s World Cup history, overtaking Kapil Dev who has 11 wins as captain.

Sl.No.	Captain	Editions	Number of victories
1.	Ricky Ponting	2003-2011	24
2.	Clive Lloyd	1975-1979	9
3.	MS Dhoni	2011-2015	9*
4.	Sourav Ganguly	2003	8

#6 Bowling unit oppositions 5 consecutive times

For the first time in the history of ODIs, India have managed to dismiss all 10 opposition batsmen on five consecutive occasions. Pakistan, South Africa, UAE, West Indies and Ireland – all have been bowled out by Team India in this World Cup. Pool A toppers New Zealand have also achieved the feat, bowling out all their oppositions in their 5 matches of the tournament so far.