Noughties NZ best

Across all international cricket - and by that I mean Test matches, ODIs and Twenty20s - the New Zealand team has had a pretty standard decade by their standards.

Our combined effort of played 349 [W 148, L 159, T 3, D 25, NR 14]  delivers a 0.93 ratio of wins to losses and puts us in 7th of all the cricket-playing countries and only ahead of the West Indies (0.63), Zimbabwe (0.32) and Bangladesh (0.31). Australia led the pack with a win/loss ratio of 3.03, miles ahead of South Africa (1.80) and Sri Lanka (1.41).

Back in the much maligned 1990s, New Zealand was also 7th but only ahead of England in that decade. Our win/loss ratio was much lower at 0.65 from 272 matches.

And in the much foamed about decade from 1980-1989 we played almost half as many matches as we have in the Noughties, and from these 185 matches ended up with a win/loss ratio of 0.90 - in 6th place but ahead of only Sri Lanka.

BATTING

The best run-scorer of the decade is one of Ian Smith's Chosen Ones on Sky Sport's current documentary series: Stephen Fleming. With 9174 runs on the board from his 233 appearances for NZ he was more than 2000 ahead of Nathan Astle (6765) and Brendon McCullum (6674). Rounding out the top five are Craig McMillan (5690) and Scott Styris (5655).

Of the regularly selected, across the decade, the best averages belong to ODI maestro Roger Twose (42.89) and Test specialist Mark Richardson (42.69), with Jesse Ryder in third (39.24).

At the other end of the spectrum Chris Martin can hold his head high and boast at the pub about scoring more runs for NZ in the 2000s than Gareth Hopkins, Pete McGlashan, Simon Doull, Shayne O'Connor, Paul Hitchcock, Tama Canning, Nathan McCullum, Jeff Wilson, Michael Mason, Brendon Diamanti, Andrew Penn, Matt Hart, Chris Drum, Matt Walker, Warren Wisneski, Glen Sulzberger, Kerry Walmsley, Geoff Allott, Grant Bradburn, Lance Hamilton and Ewen Thompson.

Most sixes: McCullum (153)

Most fours:  Fleming (1115)

Most tons:  Astle (15)

Best strike rate: Pete McGlashan (102) with honourable mentions to Andre Adams (100), Twose (80) and Chris Cairns (83).

Qual: 10 appearances

BOWLING

Daniel Vettori is a hugely dominant force on the bowling front with 221 more wickets than the silver medallist - Shane Bond (242).

Vettori's haul of 463 scalps is backed up by another staggering statistic - in the Noughties he has bowled more than 15,000 more deliveries than anyone else (and conceded 7000 more runs)! Kyle Mills (222 wickets), Jacob Oram (203) and Chris Martin (201) round out the top five NZ wicket-takers.

In terms of bowling averages, Bond led all the way with an extraordinary 21.24 followed by Nathan McCullum (23.88) and Shayne O'Connor (27.95). Honourable mentions to Kyle Mills (28.07), Andre Adams (29.88) as the other bowlers with averages below 30.00.

Most maidens: Vettori

Best strike rate: N McCullum (23), Bond (32)

Best economy rate: Vettori, Astle (3.20) - and O'Connor (3.21)

Most 5-wicket bags: Vettori (17)

Most 10-wicket matches: Vettori (3)

Qual: 10 innings bowled

THE OTHER STUFF

Fielding

Most dismissals: B McCullum (377)

Highest average dismissals per innings: Adam Parore (1.363)

Most catches by a fielder: Fleming (175)

 

Appearances

1. Vettori (387); 2. B McCullum (242); 3. Fleming (233); 4. Scott Styris (206)

Partnerships

Most runs: Astle & Fleming (3740), Fleming & Vincent (2132)

Most times past 100: Astle & Fleming (10)

Best average: McCullum & Ryder (51.73)