Background

Hashim Amla is a famous South African cricketer who was born in Durban, Natal. He did his schooling at Durban High School and then completed his graduation from a private institute. He made his debut for the provincial team KwaZulu-Natal Dolphins and later became the captain of South Africa at the Under 19 Cricket World Cup, New Zealand which was held in the year 2002.

First Appearance

He started his career in international cricket in 2004 in T20 cricket. The match was between the Dolphins and WP Boland at Cape Town. His coach Hylton Ackerman did a tremendous job in honing Hashim’s skills which helped him have a successful career in cricket. Hashim also played in the Indian Premier League (IPL) for Kings XI Punjab in the year 2016.

Ascend to Glory

Hashim had a slow start to his career but he made sure he would come back with a blast. He scored a comeback of 149 runs against New Zealand. It was from here that his career started taking off. In the next 19 tests, he scored 1599 runs with an average of 57.10.

Low Point

Hashim Amla resigned from the post of the team’s captain as he could not perform well against India in November 2015. Also, the team’s performance was going down under his captainship. Thus, in 2016, Amla took back his steps from the captainship.

Captaincy

ODI: After Smith’s resignation it was expected that Amla would take his place. But it turned out that he was named as the vice-captain of the ODI side.

Test: Captaining in the test series turned out to be a problem for him. He was not the only one who was not able to perform well, his team’s performance had also dripped.

Leaving Captaincy: After the deteriorating performance of the team in 2015, Hashim decided to step down from the captaincy in early 2016.

Hashim’s Record

· Hashim is the first batsman from South Africa to score 25 centuries in ODIs

· He is the fastest player who reached 2000, 3000, 4,000, 5000, 6000, and 7000 runs in ODIs

· 1,000 runs in both Tests and ODIs in the same year (2010)

· Hashim holds the highest ODI partnership with Faf du Plessis for any wicket for South Africa set against Ireland at the 2015 Cricket World Cup 2015. Hashim made his career best of 159 in that match.

· He is the only South African batsman to score a triple-century in Test matches.

· Hashim and AB de Villiers' partnership of 308 runs against the West Indies holds a record for a fourth-wicket partnership for South Africa in a Test match.

· Hashim and Dwayne Bravo hold the highest record for a fifth-wicket partnership in Twenty20 cricket.

· Hashim is the fourth cricketer to score 25 centuries in ODI and Test cricket

· Hashim along with Quinton de Kock recorded the highest ODI partnership for any wicket for South Africa, in the 1st ODI against Bangladesh in 2017 and set the highest score in an ODI without any loss of wicket (282).

Retirement

Hashim announced his retirement from all formats of cricket in August 2019. After his retirement, he became the batting consultant of a franchise team.