Virat Kohli, Steve Smith, AB de Villiers and Kane Williamson. These names are often mentioned by experts and fans when they debate on the current best batsmen. But South African opener Hashim Amla is silently doing his job by breaking records and deserves to be in that list.
Yesterday (October 15) was another instance where Amla went about his business to bat his side to victory against Bangladesh in the first One Day International in Kimberley.
Chasing the visitors' 278, South Africa cruised home without losing a wicket. Amla (110 not out) and Quinton de Kock (168 not out) put on a record 282 for the opening wicket to win in 42.5 overs.
Amla struck his 26th ODI century and in the process broke Indian captain Kohli's record. The right-hander reached the milestone in his 154th innings. Kohli, regarded as the best in the business at the moment, had taken 166 visits to the crease to bring up his 26th hundred in the 50-over format.
This is not the first time that the 34-year-old Amla has surpassed Kohli. Earlier this year, he broke the Indian's record to enter the 7,000-ODI runs club. Kohli took 169 innings to reach the landmark while Amla had completed in 150.
In the race to 25 ODI tons too, Amla led the pack. He needed 151 innings while Kohli took 162.
Amla also holds the record for being the fastest to 2,000 (40 innings), 3,000 (57), 4,000 (81), 5,000 (101) and 6,000 runs (123) in ODIs. In 157 matches so far, he has accumulated 7,296 runs.
The right-hander is also a top Test batsman. So far, in 109 matches, he has scored 28 hundreds and has aggregated 8,578 runs. Kohli has scored 30 ODI and 17 Test centuries.
Kohli and his Indian team-mates are now preparing for a three-match ODI series against New Zealand starting Sunday (October 22). Recently, India won 4-1 in ODIs and shared the Twenty20 Internationals rubber 1-1 against Australia.
