Australia's Adam Zampa (L) celebrates the wicket of New Zealand's Daryl Mitchell during their group match at the Cricket world Cup. Photo: photosport
Australia's World Cup campaign has gathered momentum the group stages, with spin bowler Adam Zampa ending the marathon nine-match programme as the tournament's leading wicket-taker and Glenn Maxwell its most devastating scorer.
The statistics after the five-week slog to get to this week's semi-finals demonstrate just how a handful of the key players in Pat Cummins's team have hit their most formidable form just at the right time going into Thursday's last-four clash with South Africa in Kolkata.
Among the tournament's most prolific run-scorers, there are three Australians in the top 11, with all the question marks hanging over David Warner dispelled by the 37-year-old accumulating 499 runs from his nine innings to be fifth-top scorer.
Mitchell Marsh's emotional 100 in their final match against Bangladesh gives him 426 from eight digs in seventh place, while Maxwell is 11th with 397 in seven innings.
But Maxwell, whose incredible unbeaten 201 not out against Afghanistan was the only double-century of the group stages, has the best strike rate of any batter in the tournament, scoring his runs at 152.69.
Nobody, though, scored runs in a single innings quicker than captain Cummins, whose 37 off 14 balls against New Zealand at Dharamsala came at the unfeasible rate of 264.28.
Zampa has been the tournament's stand-out tweaker, with his tournament-best haul of 22 wickets - at an average of 18.90 and with an economy rate of 5.26 - now four clear of any other bowler left in the last four.
New Zealand test great Daniel Vettori, Australia's spin bowling coach, paid the 31-year-old Zampa a handsome tribute, describing how he's become almost "unplayable".
"He obviously had a very difficult start through injuries and illness to be able to actually play, and probably the first three games was an amazing effort because he was pretty close to pulling out against Pakistan," Vettori said.
"His control of his length since has been the best I've seen. We all know the skills and the variations, but his ability to actually just land the ball on the spot time and time again gave most teams limited opportunities to attack him."
- This story was first published on ABC