Kohli runs his way to a hundred

Kohli's long and running innings

Virat Kohli played his ODI career's longest ODI innings, 159 balls, in the third ODI in Cape Town. The previous longest being 148 balls in his 183 against Pakistan at the 2012 Asia Cup in Dhaka. His innings is also the longest among Indian non-opening batsmen.

Kohli's innings was quite special in many ways. But one of the most significant and rare occurrence, was that he scored 100 out of 160 runs by running and only 60 from boundaries. In all, he ran 75 singles (75 runs), 11 doubles (22 runs) and one three (3 runs). Before Kohli, only four other batsmen have run 100 or more runs in an ODI innings and none of them are Indians. The most runs by running in an innings is 112 by Gary Kirsten in his unbeaten 188 at the 1996 World Cup against UAE. Last year, on this same day at the same venue, Faf du Plessis had run 103 runs in his unbeaten 185 against Sri Lanka which is second on the list. Adam Gilchrist's 172 and Martin Guptill's 189 are the others that make the list. The previous highest among India batsmen was 98 runs in Sourav Ganguly's 130-run innings against Sri Lanka in 1999.

Captain Kohli beats Ganguly

The century was Kohli's 12th as captain, going past Sourav Ganguly's tally of 11 as India captain. Kohli has achieved the feat in 100 innings fewer than Ganguly. He has done it only in 43 innings. Now only two players have scored more centuries as captain than Kohli: Ricky Ponting with 22 centuries (in 220 innings) and AB de Villiers with 13 (in 98).

Bumper series on the cards

With just half the series done, Kohli has already scored the most runs by any India batsman in a series against South Africa. He has 318 runs from the first three matches. He is also the only India batsman to score more than one century in a series against South Africa. Before this, he did not have any hundreds in South Africa. He is also only the fifth batsman overall to score more than one century in a bilateral series against South Africa. The only one to hit three is Kevin Pietersen in 2004-05.

Kohli's 160 not out is the second-highest by an India batsman against South Africa, only behind Sachin Tendulkar's double-century in 2010 and third-highest for any player against South Africa in South Africa.