MS Dhoni became only the third Indian captain to win toss in all the matches of a five-match series. Others to do so are Mohammad Azharuddin (vs Pakistan in Canada in 1998) and Sourav Ganguly (Coca Cola Cup in Zimbabwe in 2001).
Matt Henry was making his ODI debut. He became 183rd player to represent New Zealand in ODIs.
Kane Williamson scored his fifth consecutive fifty in the series. He thus became only the second player to score fifty in every match of a five-match series. The only other player to do so is Pakistan’s Yasir Hameed and he did so against New Zealand in 2003-04.
Williamson also became the first player to score five consecutive fifties against India. Previously 10 batsmen had scored four consecutive fifties with Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakkara doing so twice.
Williamson’s series-aggregate of 361 is the highest by a New Zealand batsman in a bilateral series. Nathan Astle held the previous record with 351 runs against Zimbabwe in 1997-98.
Ross Taylor (102) scored his second consecutive hundred. He had also scored 112* at Hamilton in the fourth game.
This was the second occasion that Taylor scored back to back ODI hundreds. He had done so in 2011-12 also. Taylor thus became first New Zealand batsman to score back to back hundreds on two occasions. Mark Greatbatch (in 1990) and Martin Guptill (in 2013) are the other New Zealanders to score back to back hundreds.
Incidentally Taylor’s hundred was the 5000th hundred in international cricket and 1300th in ODIs.
MS Dhoni, on 1, completed 8000 ODI runs. He became 7th Indian and 26th player overall to accomplish this feat.
By taking 214 innings, Dhoni became the fourth quickest to reach the 8000-run landmark. Only Sourav Ganguly (200), Sachin Tendulkar (210) and Brian Lara (211) have done so in fewer innings than Dhoni.
Matt Henry’s figures of 4 for 38 are the third best by a New Zealand bowler on ODI debut, after Michell McClenaghan’s 4-20 (vs South Africa, Paarl, 2013) and Dayle Hadlee’s 4-34 (vs Pakistan,
Christchurch, 1973).
India failed to win a single match in the series- fourth such instance for them in a bilateral series of four matches or more.
MS Dhoni became only the second captain to win every toss in a ODI series (of 5 matches or more) and yet not winning a single game. Australia’s Mark Taylor is the only other to suffer this fate (in Titan Cup in 1996).
