The Pakistan vs Sri Lanka match in the Cricket World Cup 2023 turned out to be a high-scoring thriller, with the two teams putting nearly 700 runs on the board cumulatively. In different phases of the match, both seemed to have had some sort of edge, but it was Mohammad Rizwan’s unbeaten knock of 131 runs that proved to be the difference maker. The wicket-keeper batter, however, was only one of the four players in the match who went on to register triple-digit scores.
Batting first, Sri Lanka put a total of 344 runs on the board, thanks to centuries from Kusal Mendis and Sadeera Samarawickrama. For Pakistan, the likes of Abdullah Shafique and Mohammad Rizwan scored centuries, as the latter remained unebaten till the end despite apparent injury issues.
As Pakistan chased down the target, record books were rewritten. Here are some of the milestones that were reached in the match:
Highest scores for Pakistan wicketkeepers in ODIs:Mohammad Rizwan’s unbeaten 131 is the highest score for a Pakistani wicketkeeper in ODIs. Some of the other top scorers are:
124 – Kamran Akmal vs WI, Brisbane, 2005
116* – Kamran Akmal vs AUS, Abu Dhabi, 2009
115 – Mohammad Rizwan vs AUS, Sharjah, 2019
Highest target successfully chased in World Cups:Pakistan’s successful run-chase of 345 runs is the highest in an ODI World Cup match. The previous best were:
328 by IRE vs ENG, Bengaluru, 2011
322 by BAN vs WI, Taunton, 2019
319 by BAN vs SCO, Nelson, 2015
313 by SL vs ZIM, New Plymouth, 1992
Most hundreds scored in an ODI match:No ODI has seen more than 4 centuries being scored in a single contest. But, it was the first time such a thing happened in a World Cup match. Other occasions:
4 – PAK vs AUS, Lahore, 1998
4 – IND vs AUS, Nagpur, 2013
Most wins against a team without any loss in World Cups:Pakistan now have 8 wins against Sri Lanka in World Cups, the most for a single team. Some of the other teams with similar results are:
7 – India vs Pakistan
6 – West Indies vs Zimbabwe
Quite a few matches have been high-scoring contests in the Cricket World Cup 2023. More are likely to follow.
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