The third Test has been completed, with New Zealand coming out resounding winners by an innings and 185 runs to square the series at Hamilton. This concludes the nzcricket.co.nz New Zealand v Pakistan 2000/01 National Bank International Series Fantasy Cricket Competition!
Final Standings:
The overall winner is Ajit Singh from Australia, whose team "AAAJIT" finished with a total of 5150 points. Congratulations Ajit, you are now the proud new owner of a Laver & Wood "Private Bin" handcrafted cricket bat.
Ajit's winning team consisted of: Nathan Astle, Craig McMillan (trump), Stephen Fleming, Yousuf Youhana, Saeed Anwar, Abdur Razzaq, Moin Khan, Daniel Vettori, Daryl Tuffey (trump), Saqlain Mushtaq, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis.
Ajit led after the first Test, only to slip back slightly to fourth, before his trumps McMillan and Tuffey saw him right in the third and final Test.
Anthony Vernon from the United Kingdom finished in second place, winning an autographed bat signed by both the touring New Zealand and Pakistan teams. Anthony's team tallied 5106 points, leaving him 44 points behind the overall winner.
Five points further back in third place on 5101 points is Sainula Shahrah from India, whose team "Shahrah's XI" has won her a replica CLEAR Black Caps shirt.
The trumping of McMillan and Tuffey proved crucial for both Anthony and Sainulla to leap up the rankings into the top three prize-winning positions.
The winners of 20 consolation prizes of CricInfo 2001 cricket calendars are: Ian Young, Sue Curran, Mick Bannon, Subburam, Pranay R Bhagat, Pinaka, Ali S Masood, Elango Chidambaram, Daniel Lord, Usman Jehangir, Hasnain, Manasi, Kalyanasundaram N, Mildside, Steve Johns, Venkat Suresh, Mansoor Qureshi, Junaid Asif, Manoj and Khalil Ahmed.
You needed to have totalled a minimum of 4852 fantasy points to be in a prize-winning position.
We will get in touch with all winners very shortly to arrange delivery of prizes.
Congratulations (and commiserations!) to all who entered, thank you for your participation and look out for bigger and better fantasy cricket competitions at nzcricket.co.nz and CricInfo.com in the future!
[Find out where you finished]
News:
The third Test on the first non-portable pitch of the series at WestpacTrust Park in Hamilton always had a 'result' look to it, with a very grassy, green surface being presented before the start. It had the bowlers salivating, and both captains anxious to win the toss so they could bowl first.
Upon winning it, New Zealand set about a complete demolition job of the visitors from start to finish. By the end of the first day, Pakistan were already facing a first innings deficit of 56 without having taken a wicket as the New Zealand batsmen proved the pitch wasn't as dangerous to play on as first thought.
Pakistan's second innings was barely an improvement on their first, as they tumbled to the worst defeat in their Test history in the space of just nine overs above two normal full days playing time (after taking into account a complete day and then some for rain and bad light disruptions).
Such was New Zealand's all-round domination that six of its players (Daryl Tuffey 145, Chris Martin 125, Craig McMillan 123, Mark Richardson 111, Matthew Bell 110 and James Franklin 105) earned more than 100 fantasy points each for those who chose them - with Pakistan's best being a distant 60 from Fazl-e-Akbar's three consolation wickets.
Tuffey's man of the match performance, taking 7-77 all up and a fine outfield catch to dismiss key batsman and captain-for-a-match Inzamam-ul-Haq in the second innings, sealed his spot as the most valuable player in the entire fantasy competition. His performances throughout the One-Day Internationals and Tests proved crucial to those who ended up winning prizes, with 2390 entrants (41%) selecting him. More critically just 182 (3%) elected to trump him.
Most Valuable Players:
| |
|
Points |
| 1st |
Daryl Tuffey |
618 |
| 2nd |
Craig McMillan |
554 |
| 3rd |
Yousuf Youhana |
487 |
| 4th |
Saqlain Mushtaq |
436 |
| 5th |
Nathan Astle |
352 |
| 6th |
Mathew Sinclair |
330 |
| 7th |
Stephen Fleming |
321 |
| 8th |
Waqar Younis |
320 |
| 9th |
Mark Richardson |
315 |
| 10th |
Chris Martin |
271 |
[Full list of players]
The two most valuable trumps to have were McMillan (batting), worth 1108 points, and Tuffey (bowling), worth 1236 points.
