• Daniel Vettori was playing his 100th match. He became 13th New Zealander and 126th player overall to do so.
• Vettori, opening the innings for only second time in his career (he had made a duck on only other occasion), also completed his 500 runs in ODIs. By taking 67 innings to reach this milestone, Vettori became fourth slowest in all ODIs to do so after Pakistan’s Waqar Younis (82 innings), West Indies Curtly Ambrose (76) and India’s Anil Kumble (75). However Vettori is the eighth slowest in terms of mots matches taken to accomplish this feat with Pakistan’s Waqar Younis taking as many as 166 matches for his 500 runs.
• The eighth wicket stand of 53 runs between Brendon McCullum and Andre Adams is New Zealand’s best for this wicket in World Cup games. The pair obliterated the previous record stand of 48 runs recorded on two separate occasions – by Chris Harris and Dion Nash against Pakistan at Derby in 1999 and Dayle Hadlee and Brian McKechnie against England at Nottingham in 1975.
• Wavell Hinds- with an experience of only 19 overs in his 65 previous matches - returned the best figures for West Indies by claiming three wickets for 35 runs in 10 overs.
• Chris Cairns was carted for 21 runs in his first over (16th of the innings) in international cricket in more than 12 months after knee surgery. The first ball was a no ball which was hit for four, his second ball was a wide, third was pulled for a four. A dot ball followed that, a four was cut from the next ball, and after a single was taken from the penultimate ball, Ricardo Powell pulled a big six over the mid-wicket boundary.
• The seventh wicket partnership of 98 runs between Ramnaresh Sarwan and Ridley Jacobs is the highest for all countries in the World Cup. This replaced the previous record stand of 83 between New Zealand’s Stephen Fleming and Chris Harris at Derby in 1999 World Cup.
• New Zealand registered their first One-Day International win on South African soil in 14th attempt. They had lost 11 matches and remaining two were 'no result' matches.

(Article: Copyright © 2003 Rajneesh Gupta)