Feature
The fastest centuries in ODI cricket, and how they were scored
From Shahid Afridi’s teenage onslaught to AB de Villiers’ 31-ball hundred, the innings that redefined what was possible in fifty-over cricket.
By CricRadio Editorial
Quick answer
The fastest ODI century was scored by AB de Villiers, who reached three figures in 31 balls for South Africa against West Indies in Johannesburg in January 2015.
For most of one-day cricket’s history, a hundred in under 50 balls was almost unthinkable. Then the format changed around the batters: bigger bats, fielding restrictions and a generation raised on T20 turned the impossible into something that now happens every few years.
The record list
| Balls | Batter | Team | Opponent | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 | AB de Villiers | South Africa | West Indies | 2015 |
| 36 | Corey Anderson | New Zealand | West Indies | 2014 |
| 37 | Shahid Afridi | Pakistan | Sri Lanka | 1996 |
| 40 | Glenn Maxwell | Australia | Netherlands | 2023 |
| 41 | Asif Khan | UAE | Nepal | 2023 |
Shahid Afridi, 1996: the one that started it
Afridi was a teenager playing only his second ODI when he hit a 37-ball hundred against Sri Lanka in Nairobi. The record stood for more than 17 years and changed how teams thought about the first fifteen overs.
Corey Anderson and AB de Villiers: the record falls twice
Anderson broke Afridi’s mark with 36 balls in a rain-shortened match in Queenstown on New Year’s Day 2014. Barely a year later de Villiers walked in at the Wanderers with 39 overs gone and reached his hundred in 31 balls, on his way to 149 from 44.
What the fastest innings have in common
Late entry: batting with few overs left removes any reason to hold back.
Short boundaries: most came on smaller grounds or at altitude.
Pace on the ball: nearly all were scored against seamers, not spinners.
Then and now
| 1996 | 2023 | |
|---|---|---|
| Fastest hundred to date | 37 balls | 31 balls |
| Typical team total | Around 230 | Around 290 |
| Fielders outside the circle (overs 11–40) | 5 | 4 |
Will 31 balls ever be beaten?
Records built on circumstance are vulnerable, and the right batter in the right last ten overs could do it. But de Villiers needed almost everything to go right. For now, his 31 balls look as safe as any batting record in white-ball cricket.
