All Amla wanted to do was score runs

IN THE days leading up to his 100th Test, Hashim Amla wanted his focus to be on one thing, and one thing only – scoring runs. It had been, in the context of Amla’s illustrious career, a dry spell for him in 2016. As he stated on Thursday, he felt that he’d not contributed to the Proteas’s success this season and so, while there was quite rightly a lot of fanfare around about his 100th Test – he is, after all, only the eighth South African to reach that landmark – Amla wanted nothing to do with the “razzmatazz” as he put it, but just to focus on his job – scoring runs.

It’s a simple enough goal and for the very best sportsmen, they do their best to keep their goals as simple as possible. Amla has always loved batting, loved scoring runs, and since he started his Test career in November of 2004, that’s all he’s ever wanted to do.

When he first broke into the Proteas team, the questions about whether he was a capable Test player surrounded not just his technique, but also his temperament. And then given the country we live in, race and religion were thrown into the mix too.

Amla never changed – well, his technique just tightened up, as is perfectly natural for any international cricketer – but the rest of us did.

We learned to appreciate the soft-spoken man with the funky back-lift, a devout Muslim who let it be known that his faith was central to him, but he never did so in an overbearing manner.

His request to have the Castle Lager logo removed from his shirt was done quietly. It was the public who made a big deal of it.

And all through his career, he has handled the adulation in a dignified manner.

His former captain, Graeme Smith, described him as an iconic player, not just for South Africa but worldwide. And through it all, he’s allowed his cunning wit to shine through, been an example to the youth, and just kept scoring runs.