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| Why is Amla not good enough for ODIs? |
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| Category: Shorts |
| Written by Luke Tagg |
| Tuesday, 23 February 2010 23:18 |
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The omission of Hashim Amla in the starting lineup for the first ODI between India and South Africa in Jaipur on Sunday left me not a little uneasy, I don't mind telling you. National cricket selectors must get the hell-in with couch selectors, but I would have thought Hash would have been a shoo-in for one of the opening berths considering his astonishing form in the Test series. A turgid batting display from South Africa's top order was made to look better by the fireworks of Wayne Parnell and Dale Steyn down the order, but Jacques Kallis aside - to a man they were crap. Panicky cuts and heaves are never good for much more than a few lucky runs - what South Africa needed was someone to bat through the innings, in much the same way Gary Kirsten used to do. Kallis had a stab at it but was hampered by being the Lone Ranger playing a lone hand on a lonely night in Rajasthan. A little company would have been just the tonic. Amla scored 490 runs in the two-Test series and got out once. Two centuries and a double. If that's not the work of a classic stick-in-the-mud then label me a mucky old fool. It's not as if Hash is hopelessly out of his depth in ODIs either: he averages 47.11 from 22 matches (48.41 as an opener) and has a century and six half-centuries in 21 innings. In other words, he goes past 50 every third game he bats in. And just when you think you've nailed me your Strike Rate yorker, I counter by digging out Amla's career SR of 82.65 and hitting you for six into the silent stands. An opener who makes 48 runs off 58 balls on average in every game he plays, whilst maintaining the finest beard since Edward Teach hisself, is surely an opportunity waiting to be exploited. He's also less flustered than a billionaire monk living in tranquility a thousand miles from nowhere on the top of the highest mountain in Tibet on a balmy summer's day. Unflappable. He cannot be accused of hysterical, serial, irrevocable panic. Bring on The Beard, quoth I, and let's be done with this silly thing. 
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