Times Media
TELFORD VICE, Cape Town
“SORRY ‘Hash’, I might stink a little bit,” Rilee Rossouw said as he sat down next to Hashim Amla at the press conference that followed the fifth one-day international between SA and West Indies at Centurion on Wednesday.
“I’m used to it with you - it’s fine,” Amla replied like a gently mischievous uncle.
Amla had scored 133. Rossouw had made 132. They had piled 247 runs of domination on the West Indians in their partnership.
Rossouw collected the man-of-the-match award. Amla was named man-of-the-series for scoring 413 runs in four innings at an average of 206.50.
If anyone stank, it was not Rossouw or Amla. But, nevermind batting from opposite sides of the crease, they are at opposite ends of the squad SA will send to next month’s World Cup.
There is little Amla cannot do when he has a bat in his hands. He crossed another item off that short list on Wednesday when he hit six sixes - his most in single ODI innings.
Going into the match, Amla had not bothered hitting any sixes in 86 of his 103 innings. Of the 5875 balls he had faced, only 24 had sailed over the boundary.
He was more concerned with poise than power, and despite what was seen as a too conservative approach he had become the No. 1 batsman in the format. That he is currently ranked third behind AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli is worthy of much pondering.
But, on Wednesday, the accumulator turned annihilator. Amla hooked his first six off the top edge. Then followed a scoop over fine leg, a heave over long-on - launched from a grounded knee - and two over midwicket. His last six was the most outrageous: he danced beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free of his bat, and sent the ball spiralling over third man.
Who was this bearded impostor, what had he done with Hashim Mohamed Amla, and how does he get grizzled hacks to bend Bob Dylan lyrics to his tune? Hey, Mr Tambourine Man? How?
“When an opportunity arises to try and take the game forward you try and do that,” Amla said. As one does.
At international level, nobody knows quite who Rossouw is. Three months ago, he was the flop who had suffered four ducks in his first six ODI innings. Then, even as AB de Villiers painted a Jackson Pollock on and over the Wanderers’ green canvas in the second match of the Windies series on January 18 - in less adequate terms De Villiers scored the fastest ODI century - Rossouw cracked a hundred of his own.
Trouble was, Amla did, too. So Rossouw’s innings had to get in the queue. But he had proved he belonged.
On Wednesday he did so again. This time, Rossouw scored four more runs and faced 17 fewer deliveries, and drilled most his eight sixes flat, fat, phat and fantastic.
“In the beginning it was tough because I felt intimidated,” Rossouw said. “You play with legends of the game - ‘Hash’ and AB and even Faf (du Plessis), and Dale (Steyn).
“You want to feel part (of the team) and you don’t until you score runs. I feel a lot more settled now.”
So, apparently, does Quinton de Kock, who played his first match on Wednesday after more than a month out with an ankle injury.
De Kock dived to snare a legside delivery and, according to Amla, “He just said, ‘Ja - I’m back’.”
All good. Because it’s time to wake up and smell the World Cup.
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