* Ed Joyce (112) registered his third ODI century, he has two for Ireland and one for England.

* Andy Balbirnie (97) became the sixth batsman to register a score in the nineties for Ireland. Eoin Morgan has two such scores.

* Ireland’s score of 331-8 is now their highest score in ODIs. Their previous best was 329-7 vs England at Bangalore in 2011 during the last World Cup.

* It is also the second highest score made on this ground in ODIs. The highest remains 344-7 by Australia against Zimbabwe in 2004.

* Brendon Taylor, when on one, became the only fourth Zimbabwean to score 5000 runs in ODIs. Taylor has 5120 runs with Andy Flower (6786 runs) being the highest run scorer for Zimbabwe.

* Taylor (121) registered his 7th ODI century. It was his first at number 5. He now has centuries as opener (3), at number 3 (2), at number 4 (1) and number 5 (1)

* Taylor now joins Alistair Campbell as the Zimbabwe player with most centuries in ODI matches. Campbell and Taylor have seven, followed by Grant Flower with six and Andy Flower and Neil Johnson with four each.

* Six of Taylor’s seven centuries have now come in a losing effort. The only winning effort was his 119* vs SL at Harare (7-6-2010)

* Incidentally Zimbabwe have gone through the last two (2007, 2011) World Cups with out an individual century. Their last WC centurian was Craig Wishart (172*) vs Namibia at Harare in 2003.

* The 138-run third wicket partnership between Ed Joyce and Balbirnie is now the highest ever by Ireland in ODI’s. The bettered the previous record of 125 btw Poterfield and Naill O’Brien vs Netherlands at Amstelveen (7-7-13).

* The fifth wicket stand of 149 between Taylor and Sean Williams is the third best for any wicket by Zimbabwe in WC matches. The highest remains 181 by Tatenda Taibu & Ervine versus Canada in 2011.

* It was only the third time Zimbabwe had scored 300 plus while chasing. They managed a win against NZ at Bulawayo (25-10-11) but lost narrowly by one run to Aus at Perth (4-2-2001).

* The two teams have met only once before in WC matches in 2007 and the match ended in a tie. On that occasion, Zimbabwe’s target was 222 while it was 332 on Saturday.

* Zimbabwe’s loss by five runs is now their second-most narrow loss by runs in World Cup matches. The narrowest margin remains the three-run loss to NZ in 1987.