Top 5 ODI team totals without a century
One Day International is one of the shorter formats of cricket with each team getting up to 50 overs to bat. The first official ODI match was played between Australia and England which was organised on 5 January 1971. Since then, there have been many high scoring matches and many cases of individual heroics.
However, every high scoring match does not necessarily mean one or two batsmen getting centuries. Recently, Sri Lanka scored 366-6 in 50 overs against England on October 23 at R. Premadasa Stadium in Colombo. In this match, there were no centuries scored by the Lankans.
Niroshan Dickwella was 5 runs short of his third ODI century. He was the highest scorer of that match and was the Player of the Match. The Lankans defeated England by 219 runs (DLS Method).
Let us have a look at the top 5 highest ODI team totals without a century.
#5 Australia - 359/5 against India
Australia scored 359/5 against India on October 16, 2013, at Jaipur. George Bailey was the highest scorer for The Aussies in this match with an unbeaten 92. Aaron Finch and Shane Watson scored 50 and 59 respectively. Phillip Hughes scored 83 and helped his team to a total of 359 in 50 overs.
Though there were no centuries in the Australian innings, there were 5 half centuries coming from the seven batsmen that got to bat.
The efforts of the visiting Australians went in vain as India scored 362 in 43.1 overs and won by nine wickets. Rohit Sharma scored an unbeaten 141 in 123 balls and won the Man of the Match award. Virat Kohli recorded the fastest ODI century by an Indian. He reached that landmark in 52 balls. Shikhar Dhawan scored 95 fell short of his ton by just 5 runs.
#4 England - 363/7 against Pakistan
England scored 363/7 against Pakistan on Aug 20 1992, at Trent Bridge. Robin Smith was in the highest scorer of this match with 77 runs coming off his bat and was awarded as the Man of the Match. Also, the half-centuries by Neil Fairbrother and Graeme Hick propelled the team to a total of 363 in 50 overs.
The Men in Green stumbled to a score of 165 in 46.1 overs. The skipper Saleem Malik was the highest scorer for Pakistan. He scored 45 and was caught by Small off Illingworth. Richard Illingworth and Phil DeFreitas were the crucial performers with the ball as they picked up three wickets each. As a result, England won by 198 runs.
All stats are from espncricinfo.com