Cricket
The Pakistan-South Africa innings took an exciting turn when Hashim Amla on Saturday broke another record of India captain Virat Kohli.
Updated : Jan 20, 2019, 08:10 PM IST
The Pakistan-South Africa innings took an exciting turn when Hashim Amla on Saturday broke another record of India captain Virat Kohli.
Amla became the fastest to get to 27 ODI hundreds during the first of a five-match series against Pakistan at home.
The batsman got his 27th century in his 167th ODI innings while Kohli took 169 innings to get to achieve this milestone.
However, Amla has been receiving some flak for his knock. The opener made 155-run for the second wicket with Rassie van der Dussen but the hosts only managed to make 266 runs with the loss of two wickets.
This was the country’s lowest total in a 50-over match after losing only two wickets since the 1992 World Cup.
The backlash started after former opener Herschelle Gibbs lashed out at Amla and Dussen. Cricket fans as well criticised the former calling his knock "a selfish" one.
#SSCricket Never thought id see this stat esp with the t20 revolution pic.twitter.com/oUkhhGdgAu
— Herschelle Gibbs (@hershybru) January 19, 2019
Not sure how both batsman can have the same approach for so long..one should pulled the trigger ages ago.#SSCricket
— Herschelle Gibbs (@hershybru) January 19, 2019
South Africa totally deserves what they are getting here from Pakistan, who have been superb. Hashim Amla's selfish innings deserves nothing less than a big defeat.
— Saurabh Malhotra (@MalhotraSaurabh) January 19, 2019
It's all over in Port Elizabeth, Pakistan win the first Momentum ODI by 5 wickets and go 1-0 up in the 5-match series.
— Cricket South Africa (@OfficialCSA) January 19, 2019
What a match!
Hard luck to our boys, we're backing you to bounce back in Durban next Tuesday.#SAvPAK #ProteaFire pic.twitter.com/vziR58g16D
The South African skipper Faf du Plessis tried defending the batsmen saying the Pakistan bowlers were better in the middle overs but nothing would change the people’s mind.
"We were 10-15 runs short. The foundation was good but we could not add those extra runs in the end. They batted really well. These games are all about learning for us. We have had a great couple of weeks but today was a great learning curve for us," Du Plessis said.
He added: "In-form Hashim is really important for us. Amla showed intent from the starting for us and his innings is a positive for us. They bowled really well in the middle overs. They bowled better than us in that phase."
Pakistan, who were whitewashed in the Test series, won the ODI with five balls and five wickets to spare.