www.GOcricket.com - http://www.gocricket.com/Hashim-Amla-Fine-batsman-finer-human/Telford-Vice/columnshow/45186517.cms
TELFORD VICE, Cape Town
THAT someone like Herschelle Gibbs should kickstart someone like Hashim Amla’s one-day career proves that cricket has a sense of humour. Talk about connecting the dots between the sacred and the profane.
And so it came to pass, on March 9, 2008 - a Sunday - in Chittagong, that Gibbs shaped to pull Shakib Al Hasan all the way to the nearest dodgy bar: a good few thousand kilometres as the crow flies.
Shakib’s arm ball did not, of course, turn. And, this being Chittagong, regardless of the day of the week, there was, of course, no bounce.
The ball thudded into Gibbs’ pad almost apologetically. Gone for 57. At the non-striker’s end, Graeme Smith was not overly concerned. He was 76 not out and South Africa were 143/1 in the 29th over chasing 179.
To the crease walked a slight, bearded figure. He shared a brief word with Smith and took guard. Shakib shuffled in and bowled. The new man lifted his bat towards gully to face his first delivery in an ODI. With a deft twitch he squeezed a single to short fine leg, and another facet of Amla’s career was born.
It was a facet many thought would never be realised, even though by then he had played 22 Tests and scored three centuries. That backlift was the first problem. Then there was his seeming distaste for big, booming strokes in favour of that thing that limited overs cricket hates - subtlety - and his obvious lack of athleticism. And let’s not get started on the sad fact that he does not drink beer.
No, this Hashim Amla fella may just have a decent Test career inside him somewhere but there no way he was going to cut it in the one-day game, the point where cricket had deigned to acknowledge the modern world.
Ninety-nine more ODIs later, Amla has turned that theory on its head just as smartly as he has proven that the angle of a backlift has nothing to do with how squarely bat meets ball.
Had T20 been taken as seriously in 2008 as it is now, Amla would have been written out of that script even more decisively than he was deemed superfluous to South Africa’s one-day requirements.
Six years on, his ODI average is higher than his Test mark - 53.42 versus 51.32 - and he has 16 centuries from 95 innings in the 50-over format. No batsman with at least 15 ODI hundreds has earned them from as few opportunities. Amla is the fastest man to score 2000, 3000 and 4000 runs in one-dayers, the first player to score 1000 runs in tests and ODIs in the same year - 2010 - and he shares South Africa’s record stand - 238 - with AB de Villiers.
Think of a stupendous batting stat and there will probably be a way to angle it Amla’s way. Yes, he really is that good. But getting him to talk about himself is often as futile as trying to dismiss him.
“I’m really grateful to all of my teammates and the ones I’ve played with before,” was Amla’s first observation on playing his 100th ODI against Australia at the WACA on Sunday. “No-one does it by themselves; you are always part of a team. Your teammates run your runs with you.”
Amla gives himself to us in such glimpses, but nothing and no-one has yet captured his essence for the world to see. Which is how he prefers to run his life - as something separate from his career.
In this age of instant everything, including insights into the thoughts of cricket’s most high profile players via the monstrous medusa of social media, Amla shuts the door on the world at the boundary. So far and no further.
He does tweet, but rarely and seriously more often than not. “Twitter might have been banned in this country if things didn’t change” he posted on April 27 this year, the 20th anniversary of South Africa’s ascent to democracy.
Even on the field, Amla can evoke sepia scenes of George Bernard Shaw in flannels gamboling about a cricket ground long, long ago when great books were written and wars were fought over ideals, not oil.
Smith ended that ODI in Chittagong with a dink off Shakib that blipped over the infield and skidaddled to the long-on boundary to take him to a century and win the match. Amla had faced 19 balls for his unbeaten nine: a modest beginning, but a beginning nonetheless on a journey few thought he would - or should - undertake.
He has since proved himself in every format, and he has remained who he was when it all started. At least, he has far as we know. And that is the way it should be.
By reserving his humanity for those closest to him Amla proves that he is human. Nothing - no average, no amount of runs or centuries, not even winning the World Cup - can be as important.
Lovely article Telford. However, there is a side to the Hashim Amla story that you and others have not written about, well not seriously enough though. It is about the way he went about reshaping his technique after he was exposed by the English tourists in 2005 and thereafter dropped from the Test team. He went about doing so with the singleminded intention of proving himself worthy of being a Test class batsman and to get back into The test team after being dropped. The introspection, analysis, and working on a new modified technique that he did, is worthy of a whole chapter in a modern day cricket manual for First class cricket coaches. Phil Russell, who was the Dolphins coach at the time is the unsung hero who helped Hashim immensely during this period.
The second part to this little story is how he went about doing a similar thing to make himself into a one day player. Remember that even at the time that he was first selected for the ODI team, he had, if my memory serves me correctly, only 1 limited over century at domestic level, a very modest average (in the twenties!) and an equally modest strike rate, relatively speaking. At the time, many said that "he couldn't play one day cricket". And they were right - at the time! But, boy, has he changed that view! Today with a 100 ODI's in the bag, he is one of the best that has ever played this format.
Thanks Enver, and good points well made.