Ashwell Prince had previously captained the Proteas, albeit only on a temporary basis, which meant that when Hashim Amla was named captain in 2014, he was the first non-white Proteas captain to be instilled on a permanent basis.
The first player of Indian descent to don the Proteas jersey, The Mighty Hash made his first appearance for the Proteas all the way back in November 2004 in a test match against India, with his ODI debut only coming nearly three-and-a-half years later against Bangladesh.
He has since shattered numerous records for the Proteas, holding down four spots on the Proteas’ top five highest partnerships list.
He has also scored the most ODI centuries by a South African, the second most test centuries by a South African, as well as the second most international centuries by a South African.
Hash was handed the captain’s mantle on 3 June 2014 when it was announced that he would succeed South Africa’s most successful test captain and most-capped ODI captain, Graeme Smith.
With some huge shoes to fill, Hash was faced with a mammoth task in his first test series against Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka.
He got his captaincy off to a solid start by winning the two-match series against Sri Lanka, South Africa’s first series win in Sri Lanka since 1993, and became the first South African captain to score a century against Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka in the process.
Sadly, the rest of Amla’s tenure didn’t go as smoothly, as he struggled to churn out results on both the team and individual fronts.
On the test front, he captained the Proteas on 14 occasions, winning only four, losing four, and drawing six.
His batting didn’t seem to suffer in test matches however, averaging 49,66 as captain.
However, the same can’t be said in ODIs as he only averaged 38,22 in his nine matches as captain.
In ODIs, Amla managed to win four of his nine games as captain, losing five.
He was only in charge of two T20Is, winning one and losing one.
He only lasted a year-and-a-half as captain, stepping down in January 2016 following a poor run of form with the bat and the team.
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