New Delhi: Classy South African batsman Hashim Alma played a riveting knock but missed out a deserving hundred by four runs in Kings XI Punjab's Indian Premier League (IPL) match against Sunrisers Hyderabad at Mohali.
Playing in his only fourth IPL match, he scored 96 runs off 56 balls, before holing out to David Warner at long-off in the last over. He hit 14 fours and two sixes.
The opener held the KXIP innings together, and helped post a challenging total of 179 against the visitors.
It was his Amla's highest T20 score, and also highest against individual score against SRH in this edition.
It's worth noting that the right-handed batsman was ignored by all the IPL franchises during players' auction earlier this year, where he went unsold with a base price of INR 1 crore.
But KXIP roped in the 33-year-old as the replacement of injured Shaun Marsh for the ninth edition of the tournament.
Yesterday, AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli hit tons in Royal Challengers Bangalore's massive 144-run win over Gujarat Lions. For Kohli, it was his third hundred in seven games.
The ninth season of world's premier Twenty20 league has already seen two more tons from Quinton de Kock and David Warner.
