It was the 1574th ODI match in cricket history.
It was India's 436th match. The record now reads :won 196, lost 219, tied 3 and no result 18.
It was South Africa's 187th match. The record now reads: won 116, lost 65, tied 1 and no result 5.
It was 33rd match between these two sides. The record now reads: India 11, South Africa 21, no result 1.
It was 13th match between these two sides on Indian soil. The record now reads: India 8, South Africa 5.
It was 208th match on Indian soil and fifth on this ground. Faridabad was hosting a match after a gap of 3 years and five months. Interestingly the last match on this ground was a Titan Cup league match between South Africa and Australia. By an odd piece of coincidence South Africa won that match too by two wickets !
T.R.Kashappan became 80th Indian umpire to officiate in a ODI. The other umpire Vijay Chopra was officiating in his third match.
Gary Kirsten has now made nine fifty plus scores in just 18 matches against India (including three hundreds), that is, a fifty off every second match at an average. Kirsten's frequency is the best among all batsmen who have a tally of at least five fifty plus scores against India. The previous record was on the name of West Indian Gordon Greenidge who had scored 11 fifty plus scores in 24 matches (a frequency of 2.18 matches for every fifty).
Kirsten has now scored 865 runs in 17 matches against India at an average of 57.60. Among the batsmen who have scored 500 or more runs against India, only West Indian Gordon Greenidge has made his runs at an average better than Kirsten's. Greenidge's final tally reads as 1181 runs in 24 matches at 59.00
Kirsten's score was the fourth in 90s by a South African against India. It was first time Gary Kirsten became victim of nervous ninety.
Sachin Tendulkar took four wicket in a match for the fourth time in his career. He thus equalled Kapil Dev's tally of such hauls. Now only Anil Kumble (9), Javagal Srinath (7) and Manoj Prabhakar (6) have taken four wicket hauls on more occasions than Tendulkar for India.
The wicket of Dale Benkenstein was 35th for Anil Kumble against South Africa in his 26th match. He thus surpassed Australia's Paul Reiffel's tally of 34 wickets (from 31 matches). Now only another Australian Shane Warne (48 wickets from 32 matches and Englishman Darren Gough (36 wickets from 18 matches) is ahead of Kumble.
The victory was South Africa's fifth narrowest in terms of wickets. South Africa had defeated Australia at Faridabad on 25-10-1996, West Indies at Johannesburg on 22-01-1999, New Zealand at Napier on 26-03-1999 and England at East London on 04-02-2000 by identical margin.
On the other hand it was the fifth narrowest defeat for India in terms of wickets. Interestingly India's all other narrowest defeats (in terms of wickets) came against arch rival Pakistan. India had lost to Pakistan by one wicket at Sharjah on 18-04-1986.Pakistan then beat India by two wickets on three occasions-at Calcutta on 18-02-1987,at Toronto on 17-09- 1996 and at Brisbane on 10-01-2000.
Hansie Cronje won Man of the Match award for the 18th time (third time against India) in his career. He thus equalled Jonty Rhodes' tally of awards against India. Only Gary Kirsten has won more awards for South Africa against India than Cronje - 4.