The sporting week in numbers

Jesse Ryder scored 291 runs during his comeback match for Wellington in their five-wicket Plunket Shield win over Central Districts. Photo / Duncan Brown.

The sporting week in numbers, compiled by Kris Shannon of APNZ

23 - The average age of next season's Blues' Super 15 squad named on Wednesday. Sixteen new faces, including 11 without Super Rugby experience, were announced by new coach Sir John Kirwan, who will hope youth is the precursor for turning around this year's disastrous campaign.

12 - Arsenal's League Cup clash against Reading on Wednesday was about as far from the old refrain `one-nil to the Arsenal' as could be imagined. Reading led 4-0 after only 37 minutes but Arsenal fought back to equalise in the 96th minute and send the match to extra time, where they eventually triumphed 7-5.

291 - The number of runs Jesse Ryder scored during his comeback match for Wellington in their five-wicket Plunket Shield win over Central Districts this week. Ryder was unbeaten on 117 from 113 balls in the first innings, before backing it up with 174 from 136 in his second knock.

5 - The world ranking of Spanish tennis player and Heineken Open drawcard David Ferrer. Although Ferrer has never won a grand slam - due to the stranglehold on men's tennis of the `Big Four' - he will return to Auckland for his eighth appearance with six titles under his belt this season.

2 - The number of new faces in the All Blacks squad for the forthcoming four-match Northern Hemisphere tour. Hooker Dane Coles and halfback Tawera Kerr-Barlow are the uncapped players as the All Blacks attempt to extend their unbeaten streak to 21 games - two short of their all-time record.

10,305,343 - Greg Merson, a 24-year-old professional poker player, took out the World Series of Poker main event on Wednesday to score a cool $10.3 million. Merson outlasted his final two opponents in a marathon 12-hour session, but don't feel too bad for the men who missed out - they collected a combined $10.9m for second and third place.

10 - The number of Major League Baseball teams with at least one World Series win in the last 12 seasons. The San Francisco Giants captured their second championship this week to join the Boston Red Sox as the only two-time winners since 2001 - competitive parity achieved without a salary cap.

56.5 - Before tonight's game against the Sydney Kings, the Breakers were shooting free throws at a success rate of just 56.5 per cent. The woes from the charity stripe have been one of the main reasons the Breakers' scoring has been down through their first four games - they are yet to break 75 points.

6 - None of the New Zealand cricket team's top six batsmen reached double figures in Wednesday's rained out Twenty20 match against Sri Lanka in Pallekele. The Black Caps stumbled to 28-6 in the ninth over before eventually reaching 74-7 in their rain-affected innings.

50,500 - Australian first five Quade Cooper was this week fined $50,500 for a series of tweets in September. Cooper criticised the ARU, the Wallabies and an ARU-backed computer game on Twitter, labelling the Wallabies set-up as toxic and later saying the environment was ``destroying him as a person''.