Stats: Biggest victory for South Africa against Zimbabwe in ODIs

Zimbabwe tour of South Africa 2018, First ODI, South Africa vs Zimbabwe – South Africa won by 5 wickets

Sunday, September 30, 2018, Diamond Oval, Kimberly

South Africa captained by Jean-Paul Duminy made a good start to the three-match ODI series against Zimbabwe beating the latter by a margin of five wickets at Kimberly. With this victory, South Africa take 1-0 lead in the three-match series. In a low scoring game, Lungi Ngidi with three wickets has been named as the ‘Player of the Match’. Here are some of the statistical highlights from the first ODI between South Africa and Zimbabwe in Kimberly.

117 – Zimbabwe’s team total in the first ODI match against South Africa. Elton Chigumbura (27 runs) and Hamilton Masakadza (25 runs) are the only players to get into 20s in their line-up which had seven single-digit scores. This is Zimbabwe’s lowest team total in ODIs against South Africa! Their previous lowest against SA was 119 which they scored in Centurion in the year 2009.

0 – Zimbabwean opener Solomon Mire registered a three-ball Duck in this game. This is the fourth time he registered a Duck in his 38 ODI match career. Lungi Ngidi is the bowler who dismissed Mire for a Duck in this game. Hardik Pandya and Kusal Mendis are the only other two batsmen who are dismissed for a Duck by Ngidi in ODIs.

3 – Number of catches taken by South African fielder Reeza Hendricks in this game. This is the 14th time a fielder has taken three or more catches in a single ODI. Ireland’s Andy Balbirnie and India’s Shikhar Dhawan are the only fielders to take 4 catches in an ODI so far this year.

5010 – Jean-Paul Duminy, South Africa’s captain in the ODI series against Zimbabwe, became the ninth player from South Africa to complete 5000 runs in ODI cricket. He took 172 ODI innings to get to this milestone. Among South Africans, to get to this milestone, only Jonty Rhodes (195 ODI innings) took more innings than Duminy! Hashim Amla took just 101 innings to get to this milestone and is the fastest player from any country to get to 5000 ODI runs.

5 – Number of wickets lost by South Africa in this game while chasing 118 to win. While chasing a target of fewer than 120 runs, these are the most number of wickets South Africa lost! And this is the second time they made this feat! Only other time they lost five wickets while chasing a below 120 target was against Sri Lanka in 1998 – SA were 106 for 5 in reply to Sri Lanka’s 105 all out.

143 – The margin (deliveries remaining) by which South Africa had defeated Zimbabwe in this game. This is the highest margin by which SA defeated Zimbabwe in an ODI. Their previous best was by 136 deliveries at Bulawayo in August 2014. Overall, the victory margin of 143 deliveries in this ODI is the 11th highest margin by which South Africa won an ODI match.