da bet7k： Vijay Bharadwaj was making a comeback into the Indian side aftera gap of 28 months
Rajneesh Gupta19-Mar-2002Vijay Bharadwaj was making a comeback into the Indian side aftera gap of 28 months. He last appeared for India against NewZealand at New Delhi on November 17 1999, after a hiatus of 68matches.Dinesh Mongia (159*) scored his maiden one-day hundred in his15th match. His previous highest score was 71 against England atKolkata on January 19 earlier this year.Mongia’s innings was the fourth-highest by any Indian batsmanafter Sachin Tendulkar’s 186* (v New Zealand at Hyderabad onNovember 8 1999), Sourav Ganguly’s 183 (v Sri Lanka at Taunton onMay 26 1999) and Kapil Dev’s 175* (v Zimbabwe at Tunbridge Wellson June 18 1983). It was also the 15th highest individual inningsby any batsman in the one-day game’s history.Mongia’s innings was also the highest by any left-hander againstZimbabwe. Sourav Ganguly, with 144 at Ahmedabad on December 52000, was the previous record holder.Mongia provided the eighth instance of an Indian batsman carryinghis bat through a completed innings of 50 overs or more. Hejoined an elite group consisting of Sourav Ganguly (thrice),Sunil Gavaskar (twice) and Sachin Tendulkar and Manoj Prabhakar(once each).The fifth-wicket partnership of 158 runs between Mongia andYuvraj Singh was the best ever partnership for this wicketagainst Zimbabwe. The pair obliterated the previous record standof 152 between Pakistan’s Ijaz Ahmed and Inzamam-ul-Haq at Harareon February 25 1995. Incidentally, the previous highest fifthwicket stand for India against Zimbabwe was 94 between MohammadKaif and Yuvraj Singh at Hyderabad in the fourth match of thisseries.The partnership was also the highest for the fifth wicket onIndian soil, beating the 147 run-partnership between Roger Twoseand Chris Cairns for New Zealand at Poona on November 24 1995.Interestingly, the previous highest stand for India for the fifthwicket at home was 121 between Ajay Jadeja and HrishikeshKanitkar against Australia at Kochi on April 1 1998.Sourav Ganguly’s run aggregate after this match reads: 1242 runsfrom 29 matches against Zimbabwe. This makes him the jointhighest run-scorer against Zimbabwe along with fellow IndianSachin Tendulkar.The total (333-6) was India’s highest against Zimbabwe, beatingthe 319-6 achieved at Mohali on March 10 earlier this year. Itwas also the fourth-highest total for India against allcountries.It was the 19th time that India was posting a total of 300 ormore. With this, India equalled Australia’s record of scoring 300or more in a match on most occasions.The wicket of Alistair Campbell was the 50th for Zaheer Khan. Hebecame the 19th Indian and the 130th bowler overall to reach thismilestone. By taking 34 matches to do so, Zaheer became thesecond-fastest among Indians after Ajit Agarkar, who took his50th wicket in only his 23rd match.The sixth-wicket partnership of 84 runs between Grant Flower andHeath Streak was Zimbabwe’s best for this wicket against India.The pair passed the previous highest stand of 64 between GuyWhittall and Ali Shah at Indore on November 18 1993.It was the third time that India was beating Zimbabwe a margin of100 or more runs. The other two margins were 115 runs atSingapore Kallang on September 4 1999, and 107 runs at theNairobi Gymkhana on October 1 1999.Harbhajan Singh’s figures (4-33) equalled the best by an Indianspinner against Zimbabwe. Anil Kumble returned identical figuresat the Colombo SSC on September 1 1996.Dinesh Mongia won his maiden Man of the Match award.Much has been said about India’s “dismal” performance at home,but the fact is that India has suffered a loss in a bilateralseries at home on only seven occasions out of a total of 27,drawing 3 and winning the remaining 17. Furthermore, India haslost only one bilateral series on home soil since 1987-88 -Australia defeated India by 3-2 margin in 2000-01.