Stats: Something to cheer for MS Dhoni

New Delhi: Despite the series loss, Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni may have something to smile after the Guwahati ODI as he completed his 1,000 ODI runs in the calendar year 2009. He became first Indian and fourth batsman this year after Ricky Ponting, Hamilton Masakadza and Mike Hussey to do so.

In fact, later in the match Shane Watson also achieved the same feat.

More remarkably, Dhoni completed 1,000 runs in a calendar year for the third consecutive time. Only two other batsmen - Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly - have performed the feat of aggregating 1,000 runs in three consecutive years. Ganguly, in fact, is the only batsman to have aggregated 1,000 runs in four consecutive years.

Tendulkar was playing his 150th match at home soil – first player to play this many matches at home. He also became the first batsman to aggregate 3,000 runs against Australia during his short innings of 10. He is the first batsman to reach this milestone against a particular country.

Tendulkar is followed by Sri Lanka's Sanath Jayasuriya who has 2848 runs against India.

On Sunday, India got off to one of the worst starts by losing first five wickets with only 27 runs on the board. India had lost first five wickets for only 17 runs against Zimbabwe at Tunbridge Wells in 1983 World Cup. They had also scored only 27 runs for the loss of five wickets against West Indies at Toronto in 1999.

India used nine bowlers in the match with only skipper Dhoni and Gautam Gambhir not rolling their arms over.

By winning the match Australia took 4-2 unbeatable lead in the series. This also means that India have not been able to beat Australia in a bilateral series at home since 1986-87.

Praveen Kumar (54*) made his highest score in ODIs. Interestingly his previous highest had also come in this series, 40* at Vadodara on 25-10-2009.

Praveen’s innings is the second highest by any Indian at No. 9, after JP Yadav’s 61* against New Zealand at Bulawayo in 2005. Incidentally Madan Lal is the only other Indian to score a fifty at this position (53* v England at the Oval in 1982).

Doug Bollinger’s figures of 5 for 34 are the second best by an Australian bowler against India in India, after Mitchell Johnson’s 5-26 at Vadodara in 2007.

The 74-run partnership between Ravindra Jadeja and Praveen Kumar is the best for eighth wicket at this venue. The previous best was 61 (unbroken) between Michael Bevan and Andy Bichel for Australia against New Zealand in 2003.

As many as six Indian batsmen were dismissed bowled. This equals the record of most dismissals in this manner in an innings. West Indies vs India at Kolkata in 1993 and India vs Australia also at Kolkata in 2003 provided the other two such instances on Indian soil.