South Africa storm to No.1 in One-Day International rankings

Amla scored a dazzling 154

South Africa rode on a brilliant 187-run opening stand and two dazzling centuries from Quinton De Kock and Hashim Amla to post a massive 384/6 and then restricted Sri Lanka to 296 to clinch a whitewash. In turn, they won their 11^th ODI on the trot and also got to the No.1 ODI ranking.

They replaced Australia at the top of the table whom they had also beaten 5-0 at home last year and are now one point clear at the top of the chart from the men in yellow and green.

After losing all their first four games, Sri Lanka chose to field first on Friday. But the plan backfired from the start as Quinton de Kock attacked from the word go. He was dismissive in the Powerplay whereas Amla bided his time at the other end.

De Kock en route to a scintillating 109 of 87 balls also surpassed Mahendra Singh Dhoni as the fastest wicket-keeper to reach 3000 ODI runs.

By the time De Kock got out, South Africa were in command. Amla, however, carried on from where his partner left.

Some dazzling strokeplay and determination took him past 150 courtesy of 15 fours and five sixes before getting out caught to Lahiru Madushanka.

Contributions from Faf du Plessis and AB De Villiers helped South Africa keep up the scoring rate and by the time their innings finished the Lankans had a huge mountain to climb.

Sri Lanka had no option but to come out all guns blazing from the very beginning. However, they were jolted upfront. Captain Upul Tharanga was dismissed for 7, while Kusal Mendis got out for 1.

The visitors lost three more wickets in quick succession as they found themselves tottering at 82/5  after 13.1 overs. But then Asela Gunaratne and Sachith Pathirana tried to rescue the Sri Lankan innings. They put on a 93-run partnership to try and get close to the Proteas total but then Pathirana got out after a brisk 56.

Gunaratne completed a wonderful ton but lost partners at the other end regularly and by the end of 50 overs, they fell short by 88 runs.

Courtesy of the whitewash South Africa now has 6773 at the top of the points table with 119 ratings followed by Australia at 2 with 7227 points and 118 as ratings. New Zealand and India are third and fourth respectively on the table. 

1	South Africa	57	6773	119
2	Australia	61	7,227	118
3	New Zealand	54	6,110	113
4	India	56	6,261	112
5	England	57	6,090	107
6	Sri Lanka	65	6,392	98
7	Bangladesh	33	3,019	91
8	Pakistan	56	5,005	89
9	West Indies	37	3,168	86
10	Afghanistan	26	1,341	52
11	Zimbabwe	50	2,409	48
12	Ireland	20	834	42