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Kiwi success opens record books early Francis Payne - 16 October 2000
In the first of a new series, we take a look at the New Zealand season to date.
As was reported at the time, Mark Richardson's innings of 306 against Zimbabwe 'A' was the longest ever played by a New Zealand batsman. He is also in fourth place on this particular list with his 212 not out for New Zealand 'A' against Sussex. These are the two longest innings by a New Zealander outside of Test cricket - a remarkable effort considering that Richardson only became an opening batsman at first-class level in March this year. The longest innings by New Zealand batsmen in first-class cricket are:
+ The time for Richardson's innings is still to be confirmed. Although the official scorebook gives 785 minutes, if this and the reported times of play are correct, New Zealand would have had to bowl their 19 overs at the end of the second day in 33 minutes!
Speaking of opening batsmen, New Zealand has already used an entire team of eleven since their season began in August. Nathan Astle has had five different partners in eight One-Day Internationals while injuries forced New Zealand to use as many as five openers in the two Tests against Zimbabwe. Ironically, Craig Spearman, who has looked more at home lower down the order, is the only player to have opened in both one-day and first-class games. The full list is:
One-day games:
Nathan Astle, Chris Cairns, Daniel Vettori, Scott Styris, Chris Nevin, Stephen Fleming, Craig Spearman
First-class matches:
Mark Richardson, Matt Horne, Mathew Sinclair, Adam Parore, Craig Spearman
Interestingly enough, the New Zealand openers could field a reasonably balanced team in themselves. With Richardson's part-time left-armers as backup, an attack with Cairns, Vettori, Styris and Astle would be very useful. In addition, we have Fleming to captain the side and two wicket-keeper batsmen.
Roger Twose has been the mainstay of the New Zealand one-day batting lineup and has now raised his career average past the 40 mark - in impressive company indeed as the following table shows. The highest averages in all One-Day Internationals are (minimum 1000 runs).
Since (and including) the 1999 World Cup, Twose's figures are even better and he has a high strike rate into the bargain. The highest batting averages in one-day internationals during that period are (minimum 500 runs):
Just for the record, from the World Cup onwards, Saurav Ganguly has the most runs (2405) and most hundreds (9), Moin Khan (53) has played in the most matches and Abdur Razzaq (82) has taken the most wickets. New Zealand has played 33 one-dayers in that period with only Twose (whose 1285 runs are the most) and Nathan Astle being ever-present. Chris Cairns (31) has the most wickets in that time.
Finally, New Zealand's victory in the ICC KnockOut was their first ever success in a one-day tournament. It was the 30th tournament which they taken part in and the ninth time they had reached a final.
Previous finals (or finals series) which New Zealand have played in are:
© CricInfo
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