Hashim Amla WILL NOT GO AWAY

Posted by
< 1 minute read

Hashim Amla hitting the ball with his bat again

We really like Hashim Amla, but by the box of Dujon, will he EVER stop batting?

There’s one more match this summer and we have every reason to believe that he’ll bat out the overs and make a hundred. It seems the most likely outcome, even if it’s another nine over match. He averaged 120.50 in the Test series, 111.66 in the one-day series and he made 47 not out off 30 balls today. He’s probably racking up hundreds on Little Master Cricket in the drinks breaks.

Aside from anything else, it’s a massive feat of endurance. A long innings is mentally and physically wearying and even if you recover the next day, you don’t fully recover. Experience repeated success on a long tour and it chips away at you. We can only presume that there must have been a lot of Hashim Amla to begin with.

OH NO!

Roelof van der Merwe just heard you haven't yet signed up for the King Cricket email...

...so he's on his way to see you!

14 comments

  1. It’s confirmed. Amla’s unstoppable. Only against England though, so far! I can’t believe he pays $500 every month as a fine for not abiding to CSA rules (due to religion) AND opting out of the IPL!!! What a role model. Respect.

  2. When Wisden picks the five cricketers who have had the biggest influence on the English summer, Amla ought to be at least four of them.

  3. Little Master Cricinfo?

    0.17 No Run, 17th ball of the over, pushed away gently down the track

    0.18 No Run, another nice forward defensive dribbles away

    0.19 8 Runs, this one takes a nasty bounce off the 17th ball, the batsman does well to reassemble his arms and legs into a vaguely human shape. A flat drive along the floor goes for SIX as it hits and bounces up from the 18th ball, which itself goes for two.

    0.20 No Run, a slower ball this time

    0.21 OUT, gone this time, as the 17th ball which was still there gets nudged under the bat by the well hit 21st ball rebounding from the 20th ball which was still making its way towards the batsman.

    1. 0.15 OUT. And the player smashes his mug of tea on the floor in rage at the familiarity of the dismissal cheer sound effect.

      On the plus side, we did just manage a rare ‘above the keeper’ boundary off the back of the bat.

    2. Oooh, well done. The best I’ve managed is a caught behind, which was almost as exciting.

      6 is my top score so far.

      (That’s balls on the screen at the same time)

    3. Oh dear, this game again. I’ve wasted too much time on this before…still, I know I got a double century once before, so maybe just one more go…

      However, why is it called Little Master Cricket when the batsman is clearly Chris Broad?

      Anyway, I don’t like any scoring system that gives equal importance to strike rate as runs scored. I’d prefer to play Tavare Test Cricket where they divide the runs scored by run rate.

    4. I’m afraid that would lead to a problem, Daneel, which in mathematics is known by the technical term The Tavare Test Cricket Paradox (*). In simple terms, if the score calculation is done under the axioms of any field, the score must remain undefined for at least the first million deliveries (**).

      (*) Not to be confused with the non-mathematical Tavare Test Cricket Paradox, which is that if a game of cricket is to be played on any field, the reasons for Chris Tavare’s inclusion in the team must remain undefined.

      (**) This limit is expected by most mathematicians to be much higher than this, but nobody so far has been able to stay awake long enough to prove it.

    5. I once played the 2010 Ashes using all and compiled my scores into a spreadsheet, to keep track of the scoreboard.

      Alastair Cook scored 2573 runs that winter. Almost as many as he actually got.

      Obviously The England won handsomely. I was never biased, I didn’t let Ricky Ponting go through the ashes without scoring a single run all winter at all. Not me, no siree.

    6. what a great game.

      It’s like a pinball machine with multiball feature…

      …except there are no pins…

      …and just one bat instead of two flippers…

  4. It is well known that people with beards generally play longer innings. You could convince yourself of this with statsguru.

    1. I did the sums for Mohamed Yousuf once. His batting average increased significantly after his change of confession and resultant increase in beardiness. His catching deteriorated though.
      This evidence, derived as it is from a misapplication of causality on a sample of one, should of course be universally applied. Bell and Cook should be fed hormones to improve their beardiness and non-batting members of the slip cordon should be plucked and waxed.

Comments are closed.