Hashim Amla steps down as South Africa captain

Hashim Amla has resigned as captain of South Africa with the all-rounder AB de Villiers to take over until the end of the four-Test series.

The shock announcement came at the close of the second Test which ended in a draw when bad light intervened. Ironically, Amla, who had succeeded Graeme Smith after his retirement in March 2014 ended 11 years in charge, had finally rediscovered his form with a double century in the first innings.

“After careful consideration I would like to announce that I will be stepping down as captain with immediate effect,” Amla said. “I need to be true to myself. I’m comfortable with my decision. I know I have given my best at all times. I feel there is a greater need to work on my own game.”

He added: “The decision was made two weeks ago not over the last couple of days. It just so happened I got 200 runs, but it has been coming.”

Amla captained South Africa for 14 Tests with four wins, six draws and four defeats. South Africa, despite being the top-ranked Test nation, have not won in their last eight Tests sketching back to more than a year and Amla’s form has suffered.

Amla made 894 runs at an average of 49.66, slightly down from his career mark of 51.13 in 90 Tests. He made three centuries as skipper.

Meanwhile, the record books will show this was a match that ended in a draw without the third innings even having been completed, a dull old affair.

But for a few hours, during the morning session and deep into the afternoon, as the South Africa bowlers punched a large hole in England’s second innings, there was the possibility they might be in the process of bringing off the biggest heist in the history of Test cricket.

Only six sides have made 500 runs or more in their first innings and gone on to lose and none more than the 586 Australia made against England in Sydney in 1894-95. When England made 629 for six in their first innings, they had established a position from which history suggested it was impossible to lose.

Instead the match ended, gloomily, as the fine weather of the first four days gave way to heavy cloud and bad light. Jonny Bairstow, the centurion hero of the first innings, and Moeen Ali blocked spin and seam with men perched all round the bat in an unbroken seventh-wicket stand of 43. If England emerged from the match having retained the lead they earned in Durban, then South Africa will have scared the daylights out of them.

Losing cause

More than 600 runs at five runs per over from England in the first innings, 159 for six in the second. How this game can be turned on its head. Had England lost, Ben Stokes’ 258 would have been the highest individual score in a losing cause: had that happened, a total exclusion zone round him might have been in order. The teams now have a break until the third Test starts at the Wanderers in Johannesburg on January 14th.

It was a remarkable transformation in the match, which serves to highlight yet again that if a game can be taken to a fifth day, and the pitch has had a chance to deteriorate, with cracks opening, footmarks for the spinners, and dusting up, then there are going to be opportunities. There was cloud cover too, and with it the South Africa seamers, especially Chris Morris, were able to find the sort of movement in the air that had been absent during the first four days. Give a bowler some lateral movement to go with the pace and bounce that was still in the pitch, and they are in the game.

Both Morne Morkel and Morris were excellent, with a wicket each, Kagiso Rabada nipped out the England captain, Alastair Cook, early on, and Dane Piedt captured three wickets with his off-spin.

Eternity

Bairstow played calmly though, for an unbeaten 30 from 75 balls, fortunate, when on 20, to survive a stumping chance that took the third umpire Rod Tucker an eternity to rule the Jolly Lekker decision, as the scoreboard announced, in his favour.

Moeen was discretion itself but, as once he batted through an entire day at Headingley in a memorable rearguard against Sri Lanka, we know he is not a one-trick No8 batting pony: his unbeaten 10 occupied 60 balls.

In their debrief, the England team will have plenty of time to reflect on how they had got themselves into such a tangle that it is the opposition, a shambles in Durban, who will travel to the highveld in the best spirits. In scoring the runs they did, at the pace they did, England gave themselves every opportunity to demoralise Hashim Amla’s team.

But in the course of the South African reply, they dropped no fewer than nine catches, none simple, all catchable, the most costly being that given by Amla when he had 21 of his 201 runs, and AB de Villiers when he had five of his 88.

Against this, Morris, for South Africa, held two stunning slip catches, one to dismiss Cook in the first innings, and a second to see the back of Alex Hales in the second. Those two moments encapsulate a crucial difference between the sides. Guardian Service