ICC World Cup 2019: Match 13, Afghanistan vs New Zealand – Neesham’s 5-fer, Guptill’s first-ball duck and more stats

New Zealand registered their third straight victory to stay on to the top of the table as they defeated Afghanistan by seven wickets. Afghanistan openers survived the first powerplay as they added 66 runs for the first wicket by 11th over. Jimmy Neesham and Lockie Ferguson bagged five and four wickets respectively to bundle out the Afghans to just 172. Hasmatullah Shahidi scored 59 while the wickets kept falling at the other end. Skipper Kane Williamson finished with an unbeaten 79 to see his team through the target in 32.1 overs.

All the statistical highlights from New Zealand’s comfortable win over Afghanistan:

Yet another win while chasing for the Kiwis:

10 – New Zealand have won each of their last ten World Cup games while chasing a target; the 2nd longest streak for any team. Australia have an unbroken streak of 19 successive victories in chases at the World Cup.

Milestone galore for Neesham:

5/31 – Jimmy Neesham became only the 5th bowler to claim a 5-wicket haul for New Zealand in the World Cup. Sir Richard Hadlee, Shane Bond, Tim Southee and Trent Boult are the other four Kiwi bowlers with CWC 5-fers. All the four picked up those 5-fers when opening the innings while Neesham was introduced as 2nd change bowler.

50 – Jimmy Neesham also completed 50 wickets with his 5th wicket in this game. He is the 31st player to bag 50 ODI wickets for New Zealand but only 13 of them including Neesham have aggregated over 1000 runs with the bat.

A field day for Latham:

5 – Tom Latham became the first New Zealand keeper to affect 5 dismissals in a World Cup game. He claimed five catches behind the stumps which makes him only the 4th keeper with five catches in a CWC match.

Guptill goes the first ball:

3 – Number of times Martin Guptill has been dismissed on the first legitimate delivery of an ODI inning; the most times by a player for New Zealand. John Wright and Matthew Sinclair were dismissed twice on the first ball of an ODI inning.

2 – Guptill is only the 2nd player to be dismissed on the first legitimate ball of New Zealand innings in a World Cup game. John Wright was sent back on the very first legitimate ball of the 1992 World Cup when he faced Craig McDermott of Australia.

2 – Only the 2nd time Afghanistan picked up a wicket on the first delivery of an ODI inning. Dawlat Zadran dismissed Lahiru Thirimanne during the 2015 World Cup on the first ball of the chase.

A rare occurrence in ODIs:

3 – New Zealand’s pacers Lockie Ferguson (4), Jimmy Neesham (5) and Colin de Grandhomme (1) accounted for the ten wickets of Afghanistan as 3rd, 4th and 5th change bowlers respectively.

This is only the third instance in ODI history where the pacers who did not open the bowling accumulated for ten wickets in an innings. Australians recorded this feat against England in the 1977 Birmingham ODI while South Africans replicated the same against Kenya in the 1999 CWC.