Long live Amla

There are quite a few types of strikers in modern day cricket. There are the McCullums who try to set the pace right from the get go with cuts, pulls, punches and over-the-top hits. There are the de Villierses who come later in the innings, play unconventional and improvised shots like the reverse sweeps, slog sweeps, switch hits and what not to make the runs go sky high. There are the Russells who come deep into the innings and maximise the few the deliveries they get with raw power and great timing.

And then there are only a few like Hashim Amla. The quintessential textbook cricketer who hardly plays a shot out of the text or uses extra power to get things moving, yet manages to motor along at a staggering rate of almost 90 in ODIS and 123 in T20s.

Take for instance his innings yesterday against Ireland. The stylish opener blocked the first six balls of the innings from John Mooney as he sussed the nature of the wicket, before milking it through mid-on and point in the very next over. One of those shots was a bit uppish, and after a reprieve courtesy of Kevin O'Brien in the sixth over, Amla middled everything that was thrown his way. Soon the strike rate was oscillating between 90 and 105 before his 21st ODI hundred came in exactly a run-a-ball. The innings hit top gear in the batting powerplays as Amla took Mooney for 27 in the 37th over before getting dismissed for 159 off 128 balls with a strike rate of 124. The innings gave the likes of de Villiers, Rilee Rossouw and David Miller the platform to launch.

Amla's technique is pleasing to the eyes; yet he makes quite a few adjustments when offering a stroke. The right-hander generates tremendous bat-speed which compensates for a high and angular backlift, generating power as he goes back and across, followed by a step forward. Yesterday's innings featured 16 boundaries and four sixes, yet there wasn't a single occasion when he looked hurried; such is the time that Amla gives himself when playing his shots.

The most remarkable statistic to emerge from yesterday's match was Amla notching his 20th hundred in his 108th innings, making him the fastest man to reach the landmark by a great distance, beating Virat Kohli of India by a whopping 25 innings. That statistic looks even more outrageous when one considers the fact that Amla was considered good for only the longer version of the game for a long time. After having made his Test debut in 2004 at the age of 21, it took the right-hander four more years to convince the selectors that he could be better than most even in the shorter versions, and without making any major changes to his technique or approach, but by doing the hard things his own simple way.

Now 31, Amla is already being tipped to get a few more records rolling, even including the 51 centuries hit by the great Sachin Tendulkar. The only thing that could get in his way is age.