Sunday Times
TELFORD VICE, Cape Town
HASHIM Amla has proved that backlifts need not be straight, that crooked backlifts can be coaxed onto the straight and narrow, and that quality players should not be typecast as suitable for some formats but not others.
He has turned a beer logo into a red square by way of a simple, polite, firm request and, despite his beard, managed not to be labelled a hipster. Instead, he has been called a terrorist.
Given all that, does it matter that Amla has become one of the finest and most respected players cricket has yet seen? It does, but not as much as the fact that he has remained a decent human being - a much rarer and more impressive accomplishment than anything else he has done.
Going beyond boundaries, then, is nothing new to Amla, a player who makes his own moulds and then breaks them.
However, even Amla has not done it all. He will, in fact, be in unfamiliar territory on Wednesday. All three of his tests as SA’s captain have been played on faraway fields; emphatically foreign in Sri Lanka, less so in Zimbabwe.
Subtle though the difference seems - and despite its obvious positive aspects - Amla will be under increased pressure to succeed.
He knows, of course, what it feels like to have a home crowd billowing his confidence and he will know it again. But as long as the buck stops with him, he will also feel the weight of the expectations of millions on his shoulders. How might he deal with that?
“As he normally does - without too much fuss and fanfare,” SA coach Russell Domingo said on Saturday. “He’s very excited by it and he’s looking forward to it. So he will handle it like he usually goes about his business.”
Even so, Amla might have to get the job done without JP Duminy for more then the first test. Domingo described Duminy’s chances of recovering from his knee problem in time for the second test at St George’s Park on December 26 as “highly unlikely”.
“It’s probably going to take longer than we anticipated,” Domingo said. “Test cricket is the ultimate, but the World Cup is two months away and JP is a big player for us.”
Step up, Stiaan van Zyl, whose his selection in Duminy’s place would also give Alviro Petersen - who has not scored a century in 21 completed test innings - the opportunity to regain his form against opponents who have a solitary victory and a draw to show from the dozen tests they have played in SA.
Not once in those 24 innings have the Windies enjoyed the luxury of making a declaration, and just twice have they topped 400. SA have recorded two totals higher than 600 against them here and two others bigger than 500, and they have been able to declare eight times.
There are four survivors from West Indies’ only SA victory, at St George’s Park in December, 2007, in the squad for this series.
Seven years ago, Marlon Samuels scored 94 and Shivnarine Chanderpaul made 104 in a first innings of 408, and Jerome Taylor took match figures of 6/112. The fourth man in is Denesh Ramdin, who made one and nought. So, he has a score to settle - this time as captain.
Samuels showed some of that 2007 touch against a SA Invitation XI in Benoni this week by hammering 203 off 176 balls in an innings that put Devon Smith’s 174 in the shade.
“I was pacing myself,” Samuels said. “It’s about staying patient, believing in your ability and taking your chance.”
Trouble is, Samuels and Smith scored three-quarters of the West Indians’ first innings of 508.
The other star performer in Benoni was Sheldon Cottrell, a 25-year-old left-arm fast bowler who took 5/16 in the first innings.
“That boy took five wickets in the Caribbean (5/42 for Jamaica in a first-class match against Trinidad and Tobago in Port-of-Spain), flew for two days and came here and took five again,” Samuels said. “That’s special.”
Indeed, but is it special enough for the Windies to name Cottrell, who has played one test, in an all-pace attack - which was key to their success in 2007?
They should. If Centurion flies, they might, too.
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