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Statistical Highlights 3rd match: Zimbabwe v Sri Lanka at Harare, 4-8 December, 1999

Mohandas Menon

• This match was the 1474th in Test history.

• This match was Zimbabwe's 39th and Sri Lanka's 96th in Tests.

• This match was the 10th meeting between the two sides.

• This match was the 15th to be played at this venue. Sri Lanka was playing its 4th match at this venue.

• Ray Price became the 43rd Test player to represent Zimbabwe in Tests. He is incidentally the nephew of Nick Price, one of the top golfers in the world.

• Eddo Brandes was making a come-back to the Zimbabwean Test side after almost three years. He last appeared for Zimbabwe against England at Harare in December, 1996. Since then he has missed 16 matches in between for his team.

• Ravindra Pushpakumara who was making a comeback to the Sri Lankan Test side after 20 months, last appeared for Sri Lanka against South Africa at Centurion in March, 1998. Since then he has missed 12 matches in between for Sri Lanka.

• Pushpakumara captured his 50th Test wicket when he claimed the wicket of Campbell in the first innings. He thus became the 8th Sri Lankan bowler and the 253rd bowler in Test history to do so. He was playing in his 19th Test match. Just for the record, he now has 38 wickets in 13 matches playing abroad! He has appeared in just six home Tests

• The duck by Marvan Atapattu was his 10th of his career in 29 matches. Now among Sri Lankans only Arjuna Ranatunga, Muthiah Muralitharan and Pramodaya Wickremasinghe have more ducks (12) than Atapattu.

• Russel Arnold (104* out of 231) becomes the third Sri Lankan batsman, after Sidath Wettimuny (63* out of 144) - against New Zealand at Christchurch, 1982-83) and Marvan Atapattu (216* out of 428 - in the first Test of this series last month at Bulawayo), to carry his bat the entire completed inning. He also becomes the 34th batsman to do so for the 40th occasion in Test history. Interestingly only two batsmen have achieved this feat against Zimbabwe and both by the Sri Lankans came in the same series.

• Arnold also became the 21st batsman to achieve the above feat on 22 occasions while scoring a hundred, with England's Len Hutton being the only one to do so twice.

• This was the first occasion when two batsmen from the same team have achieved this in the same series. Only twice before this feat has been achieved in the same series, albeit by batsmen from different countries. The first occasion was in the 1982-83 series in Pakistan when India's Sunil Gavaskar and Pakistan's Mudassar Nazar carried the bat in the same series. Then Englishman Graham Gooch and West Indian Desmond Haynes did so in the 1991 series in England.

• Andy Flower's four catches in Sri Lanka's first innings equals his personal best in a Test innings of his career. Later, on the last day he took his fifth catch of the match in Sri Lanka's second innings which again equalled his personal best in a Test match.

• Andy Flower after his unbeaten 70 in the second innings has now scored 2432 runs in 35 matches as a keeper at 44.22 runs per innings, which is the best average by any keeper in Test history who has played a minimum 10 matches and scored atleast 500 runs. Former West Indian batting great Clyde Walcott who had kept wickets in 15 matches and had scored 888 runs as a keeper has an average of 40.36 and while among genuine keepers South African Dennis Lindsay also in 15 matches had an average of 40.00 having scored exactly 1000 runs as a keeper.

• Chaminda Vaas with figures of seven for 104 runs has the best match figures by an Sri Lankan pace bowler against Zimbabwe. It was also the best performance by a Sri Lankan in Zimbabwe. The previous best was the 7-116 by Pushpakumara at this same venue in 1994-95.

• When play was washed-out on the fourth day (on 7 December), it provided the fourth instance when no play was possible the entire day on account of rain in a Test match in Zimbabwe. It also provided the second instance of a full day's play being washed out in the same series in Zimbabwe. During the first Test match of this series at Bulawayo the fifth and last day's play on 22 November was washed out due to rains. Just for the record in all the other three instances in Zimbabwe the last day's play was washed out.

• The 13 dismissals (all catches) by Andy Flower equals the maximum by a Zimbabwe keeper in a Test series. Wayne James too had the same number of dismissals also against Sri Lanka in the three-match Test series in 1994-95 at home.

• Sri Lanka by winning the series one-nil by virtue of this win in the previous Test at this same venue, now has 11 series victories in Tests. It was its third such victory over Zimbabwe, which equals its three series wins against New Zealand.

• It was also Sri Lanka's second successive series win under the captaincy of Jayasuriya. Last month it had won the series against Australia at home one-nil.