AB de Villiers added another feather to his cap as he became the fastest man to score 9,000 one-day international runs as he led his side to a 159-run victory over New Zealand in the third ODI international on Saturday.
The 18th player and only the second from his country behind Jacques Kallis, he achieved the feat in just 9005 balls, the quickest among all.
Man of the match De Villiers scored 85, having needed just five runs to surpass former India captain Sourav Ganguly, who took 228 innings to achieve the milestone. De Villiers did it in his 205th innings.
Enroute the 9000-run mark, De Villiers has the highest average of 53.86 and is also the only to have a strike-rate better than 100. Interestingly, Mahendra Singh Dhoni is the only other cricketer to average over 50.
South Africa scored a credible 271-8 in their 50 overs and then their pace bowlers ripped the top off the hosts batting to reduce them to 58 for six in the 20th over before bowling them out for 112 in 32.2 overs.
The victory gave de Villiers' team a 2-1 lead in the five-match series with the fourth game in Hamilton on Wednesday.
(With inputs from Arun Gopalakrishnan.)
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