How to solve a problem like Virat Kohli?

How do you solve a problem called Virat Kohli? You don't. You sit back and marvel at what the man can do, even at 37 and even if you're supporting his opponents. And be happy you don't have to bowl to him.

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Kohli scored his 52nd ODI hundred in Ranchi. (BCCI)

(BCCI)

The South Africans didn't have an option in Ranchi on Sunday. They had to bowl to Kohli, and he made them pay for that impertinence.

Kohli's 120-ball 135 in the first ODI was his 83rd century in his 621st international innings. In ODI terms, it was his 52nd. That took him past Sachin Tendulkar for the most centuries in a particular format - Tendulkar scored 51 Test hundreds.

If it seems like we're comparing apples and pears, consider that Tendulkar scored his 49th and last ODI century in his 451st innings. Kohli has hurtled to 52 in 294, and who would say he doesn't have more left in the tank.

It was, as it always is when Kohli is on song, an innings equal parts precision, authority and what looks from a distance like cold fury. Essaying strokes as clean-cut as his jaw is not, he reached his first 50 off 48 and the second off 52. Then he overcame a disruption, caused by a spectator who ran onto the field to kiss his feet, well enough to hit four fours and two sixes off seven balls bowled to him by Prenelan Subrayen and Ottneil Baartman.

"I just felt like let me go out there and hit the ball, and not think too much about any of the other stuff," Kohli told the host broadcaster. "It was just me and the ball coming at me, just enjoying the game of cricket. Which was the very reason I started playing this game."