Afghanistan vs West Indies, 2019: 3rd ODI – West Indies’ rare ODI series win, Shai Hope’s records and more stats

West Indies ended their series win drought as they won all the games in the 3-match ODI series against Afghanistan played in Lucknow. Afghanistan, who batted first, finished on 249/7 in their 50 overs with as many as three players scoring fifties. In reply, Shai Hope anchored the innings while the visitors lost two early wickets. The likes of Kieron Pollard (32 off 26) and Roston Chase (42* off 32) scored quick runs towards the end. This allowed Hope to bat with the same pace as he finished unbeaten on 109 off 145 balls.

All the statistical highlights from West Indies’ 3-0 ODI series win against Afghanistan:

End of West Indies’ series win drought:

21 – West Indies brought an end to their streak of 21 winless ODI series/tournaments spread over five years. The last instance of West Indies winning an ODI series/tournament was way back in 2014 against Bangladesh at home that too by 3-0 margin. Since then, the Caribbean team featured in 15 bilateral ODI series which includes 13 defeats and two drawn series.

Afghanistan’s losing streak continues:

12 – Afghanistan has lost each of their last 12 matches in the ODI format; a streak that began in the World Cup this year. This is the 3rd longest losing streak in ODIs for any team in the last 10 years. Bangladesh were defeated in 14 consecutive ODIs in 2010 while Zimbabwe lost 13 in a row in 2018. Sri Lanka also lost 12 consecutive ODI in 2017.

Another ton as the opener for Hope:

5 – Shai Hope now has five ODI centuries as a keeper while opening the innings for the West Indies. Only two players have scored more ODI tons as a keeper while opening the innings – Adam Gilchrist (16) and Shai Hope (14).

A series with 200+ average for Shai:

2 – Shai Hope finished the series with an average of 229; the 2nd time he had 200+ average in an ODI series. Hope averaged 297 in the last year’s ODI series on Bangladesh tour. He is now only the 3rd player with 200+ batting average in more than one ODI series.

MS Dhoni had three such series including a 5-match ODI series against England at home where he never got out scoring 212 runs. The other two series were against Pakistan in 2006 (219) and in 2012 (203) respectively where he was dismissed only once. Sri Lanka’s Aravinda de Silva also ended two ODI series with 200+ average which includes the 1996 Singer World series where he struck 334 runs without being dismissed.

Hope @ 1000:

108.9 – Shai Hope became the 125th player with 1000+ runs in ODI format while opening the innings. Hope has 1089 runs from 14 innings as the opener with five hundreds and four fifties. As of today, none of the remaining 124 even have an average of 60. The next best ODI average as opener among the players with 1000+ runs is 57.42 by Rohit Sharma who scored 6719 runs in 132 innings.

Afghanistan’s spin strategy:

9 – Afghanistan had four different spinners completing their 10 overs quota in the 3rd ODI. All the four bowlers picked up at least one wicket. This is only the 9th instance of four spin bowlers bowling 10 or more overs and the first such one for Afghanistan.