Super Sunday: Highlights from Kuala Lumpur, Edinburgh, Port of Spain and Dublin
It certainly was Super Sunday in the world of cricket with big runs and records and some fantastic results, none more than in Kuala Lumpur and Edinburgh.
The action started with the final of the Women’s Asia Cup T20 tournament in Kuala Lumpur, with Bangladesh taking on India. India were the favourites, but Bangladesh had won their corresponding fixture in the league phase. In the end, there were only two star performers for India – Harmanpreet Kaur with the bat and Poonam Yadav with the ball – while Bangladesh put in a team performance to win off the last ball with a scrambled two.
Soon after that, the Windies picked up the seven wickets they needed for a convincing 226-run win over Sri Lanka in their first Test in Port of Spain. Over to Dublin then for more women’s action, and the New Zealand batters were at it again, slamming their second consecutive 400-plus score and winning by over 300 runs over Ireland. And finally, Scotland trumped England, the No.1 side in one-day international cricket, by six runs in a high-scoring ODI in Edinburgh.
There was a fair bit to note stats-wise too, so here are some of them, in no particular order.
**Scotland v England ODI**Scotland, asked to bat, scored 371/5 in their 50 overs. And England responded with 365 in 48.5 overs. That made the match aggregate the sixth highest in all ODI cricket.
| Runs | Teams | Match details |
| 872 | South Africa v Australia | Johannesburg, 2006: South Africa won by 1 wicket |
| 825 | India v Sri Lanka | Rajkot, 2009: India won by 3 runs |
| 763 | England v New Zealand | The Oval, 2015: New Zealand won by 13 runs (DLS) |
| 747 | India v England | Cuttack, 2017: India won by 15 runs |
| 743 | South Africa v Australia | Durban, 2016: South Africa won by 4 wickets |
| 736 | Scotland v England | Edinburgh, 2018: Scotland won by 6 runs |
Staying with that match, it was another incredible performance from Calum MacLeod, who hit his seventh ODI century in 57 matches. Remarkably, he has only hit six half-centuries, meaning he has converted seven of 13 starts (50s) into centuries. And many of them big ones.
| Runs | Match details |
| 175 | v Canada, Christchurch, 2014 |
| 116* | v Ireland, Dublin 2014 |
| 103 | v United Arab Emirates, Edinburgh 2016 |
| 102 | v Hong Kong, Edinburgh 2016 |
| 154 | v Papua New Guinea, Port Moresby 2017 |
| 157* | v Afghanistan, Bulawayo 2018 |
| 140* | v England, Edinburgh 2018 |
As for Scotland, it was their 38th win in 113 ODIs over the years. Some figures about their journey so far:
- First ODI: Lost to Australia by 6 wickets in Worcester, 1999
- First ODI win: Beat the Netherlands by 4 wickets in Ayr, 2006
- Four wins each over Ireland and Afghanistan before they played their first Test matches
- England victory was their second win over a Test-playing nation after having beaten Zimbabwe by 26 runs in Edinburgh in 2017
- Other wins: Canada (7), the Netherlands (6), UAE (5), Kenya (5), Papua New Guinea (3) and Hong Kong (2)
Though he ended on the losing side, Jonny Bairstow gave further proof of his abilities at the top of the England ODI batting order with his third century in a row in the format, becoming the first England cricketer and the ninth in men's cricket to do so.
| Player | Consecutive centuries |
| Kumar Sangakkara (4) | 2015: 105* v Bangladesh, 117* v England, 104 v Australia, 124 v Scotland |
| Zaheer Abbas (3) | 1982-83: 118 v India, 105 v India, 113 v India |
| Saeed Anwar (3) | 1993: 107 v Sri Lanka, 131 v Windies, 111 v Sri Lanka |
| Herschelle Gibbs (3) | 2002: 116 v Kenya, 116* v India, 153 v Bangladesh |
| AB de Villiers (3) | 2010: 114* v India, 102* v India, 102 v Windies |
| Quinton de Kock (3) | 2013: 135 v India, 106 v India, 101 v India |
| Ross Taylor (3) | 2014: 112* v India, 102 v India, 105* v Pakistan |
| Babar Azam (3) | 2016: 120 v Windies, 123 v Windies, 117 v Windies |
| Jonny Bairstow (3) | 2018: 138 v New Zealand, 104 v New Zealand, 105 v Scotland |
**Women’s Asia Cup**With cricket taking time to spread among women in the subcontinent, the Asia Cup, originally a 50-over tournament, started in 2004 with only two teams in action: India and Sri Lanka. Pakistan were added in 2005-06, and it continued to be an ODI event for the first four editions, before switching to the T20 format in 2012.
India won all the four ODI versions, and then the first (2012) and second (2016) T20 chapters before going down to Bangladesh in the six-team 2018 competition.
Amazingly, not only had India won each of the previous tournaments, they started the 2018 event without ever having lost a game in the Asia Cup. That streak ended when Bangladesh beat India in the league stage by seven wickets and then followed that up with the win in the final.
During this tournament, Bangladesh had their highest individual score – Fargana Hoque's 52* in the group match against India; their highest total and highest successful chase – 142/3 in that same match; as well as their best partnership – 93* for the fourth wicket between Hoque and Rumana Ahmed.
**Windies v Sri Lanka Test**It could have been game on in Port of Spain as Sri Lanka started the final day on 176/3 in their chase of 453. Tough, of course, but not impossible. But they scored just 50 runs on the final day for the loss of seven wickets, meaning they went from 175/2 to 226 all out in a remarkable collapse.
**Ireland Women v New Zealand Women ODI**In the first game of the series, New Zealand amassed 490/4, and then in the second, 418. Not only is the first one the highest in a women’s ODI, the top three scores now belong to the New Zealanders.
| Team | |
| New Zealand | 490/4 v Ireland in Dublin, 2018 |
| New Zealand | 455/5 v Pakistan in Christchurch, 1997 |
| New Zealand | 418 v Ireland in Dublin, 2018 |
| Australia | 412/3 v Denmark in Mumbai, 1997 |
| Australia | 397/4 v Pakistan in Melbourne, 1997 |
Interestingly, the victories by 346 and 306 runs in the two ODIs against Ireland are not the biggest in terms of runs in women’s ODIs, though the record still belongs to New Zealand, who beat Pakistan by 408 runs in Christchurch in 1997 after scoring 455/5 and then bowling the opposition out for 47.