The week in numbers: w/e 23/1/11

Southee's five-wicket haul steered NZ to victory over Pakistan

11 – New Zealand ended their 11-match losing run in one-day internationals as they crushed Pakistan by nine wickets in Wellington. Seamer Tim Southee took 5/33, the best ever bowling figures by a Kiwi bowler in ODIs against Pakistan.

14 - Barcelona equalled their club record of 14 straight La Liga wins with a 3-0 defeat of Racing Santander on Saturday evening.

5 – Including Wednesday’s 3-1 win at Elland Road, the last five times Arsenal and Leeds have been drawn together in the FA Cup, the eventual winner of the tie has triumphed on their opponent’s turf.

2 – Winning margin in seconds for Cameron Meyer in cycling’s Tour Down Under after nearly 18 hours of racing.

23 – Age of HTC-Highroad cyclist Carla Swart, who was killed in a collision with a lorry while on a training ride in South Africa.

Safina failed to win a single game against Clijsters (image courtesy of dinarasafina.com)

1 – Dinara Safina became the first former world number one in Open era history to suffer a double bagel (6-0 6-0) defeat at a Grand Slam, losing to Kim Clijsters in the first round at the Australian Open.

8 – Rafael Nadal beat Bernard Tomic in straight sets, ensuring that all of the top eight seeds qualified for the last 16. This has only happened at the tournament twice before in the Open area (1985 and 2009).

284 - Francesca Schiavone beat Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-4 1-6 16-14 in their last-16 match. At 284 minutes, it was the longest women’ singles match at a Grand Slam tournament in the Open era.

1 – Northampton were the only team to finish the Heineken Cup group phase with a perfect record of six wins from six games. Toulouse were denied a 100% record when David Lemi‘s last-minute try gave London Wasps a 21-16 win.

The Premier League week in numbers

Van Persie scored his first hat-trick in English football (image courtesy of arsenal.com)

1 – Robin van Persie scored his first Premier League hat-trick as Arsenal beat Wigan 3-0. He has previously scored twice in a Premier League game on nine occasions.

3 - Dimitar Berbatov‘s hat-trick in Manchester United‘s 5-0 demolition of Birmingham made him only the third man to register three Premier League hat-tricks in the same season. Ruud van Nistelrooy achieved this feat in the 2002/03 season, while Alan Shearer managed it twice, including one season where he scored an incredible five hat-tricks.

10 – Manchester United have now won their last ten home games against Birmingham, having kept ten clean sheets in the process.

11 – Tottenham‘s 1-1 draw at Newcastle means they have failed to keep a clean sheet in any of their 11 league away games this season.

Bent scored on his debut

3 – Darren Bent scored the only goal as Aston Villa defeated Manchester City 1-0. He has now scored on his Premier League debut for Aston Villa, Sunderland and Charlton.

22 – Players from 22 different nationalities (including substitutes) took part in Blackburn‘s 2-0 win over West Bromwich Albion, a new Premier League record.

21 – West Brom have now gone 21 consecutive league games without keeping a clean sheet.

The NFL conference championships in numbers

10 – The Green Bay Packers became the tenth different NFC champion in the last ten seasons, as they held off the Chicago Bears 21-14.

2 – The Packers became the second number six (bottom) seed in NFL history to reach the Super Bowl, joining the 2005 Steelers. (If the Jets had won the AFC Championship game, they would have been the third.)

Raji rumbled 18 yards for a key defensive touchdown (image courtesy of packers.com)

3 – B.J. Raji’s 18-yard interception return touchdown was only the third by a defensive tackle in NFL playoff history.

3 – The Bears are the only team since 1970 to have three quarterbacks – starter Jay Cutler, Todd Collins and Caleb Hanie - attempt a pass in a conference championship game.

14 – Number of passes attempted by Hanie in his three-year NFL career prior to last night, when he threw 20 times.

8 – The Pittsburgh Steelers‘ 24-19 win over the New York Jets means they will play in their eighth Super Bowl, tied with Dallas for the most all-time. It will be their third Super Bowl appearance in six years.

0.833 – Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger improved his record as a playoff starter to 10-2. His .833 winning percentage is the second-highest in NFL playoff history (for quarterbacks with 10-plus starts). He trails only Bart Starr (.900).

121 – Rashard Mendenhall‘s 121 rushing yards was the most allowed by the Jets all season.

7 – Conference championship games are generally close affairs. This was the fifth consecutive year both AFC and NFC Championship games were within seven points in the fourth quarter.

(Some statistics courtesy of Opta Sports, The Times, @InfostradaLive, @StatManJon and NFL.com.)