NATIONAL NEWS - Standard Bank Proteas captain, Faf du Plessis, has led the tributes to star batsman, Hashim Amla, ahead of his 100th test match for South Africa in the third Sunfoil test against Sri Lanka starting at the Bidvest Wanderers Stadium on Thursday.
Amla will become the eighth player to achieve the milestone after Gary Kirsten, Shaun Pollock, Jacques Kallis, Mark Boucher, Makhaya Ntini, Graeme Smith and AB de Villiers.
His illustrious 12-year career is highlighted by his career-best 311 against England at The Oval in 2012, a record which still stands as South Africa’s highest individual test score, along with a rare double-hundred (253*) against India in Nagpur in 2010.
His consistency and focus have been the remarkable underlying factors to his career average of 49.45, which has been buoyed by 25 hundreds in his 7665 career runs.
Du Plessis says Amla’s contributions on, and more-so off the field, have been invaluable towards the change room and praised the 33-year-old for the impact he has played on South African cricket.
“It’s an amazing achievement,” Du Plessis said ahead of the match on Wednesday. “100 test matches is fantastic, it’s something that I won’t come close to. As a team, we are very proud of him, it’s a big day for him.
Hashim being Hashim doesn’t want anything special, it’s just another test match for him. It will be nice to see him have a great day and score big runs, we are 100% behind him, he is a great player for us.
