Amla reminds England of Test 'grind'

If England want some advice on how to approach an innings, they can get it from Hashim Amla. South Africa's No. 3 spends, on average, 127 minutes at the crease every time he bats (only 15 men in history have more staying power), in a career in which he has spent 380 hours and 34 minutes in the middle. More than 13 of those were occupied batting at The Oval in 2012, when he reached the highest Test score by a South African, and Amla got there by knowing how to balance attack and defence.

"Test cricket has an element of grind in it," Amla said, back at the scene of his 311 not out, ahead of the third Test this time around. "But you can't be attacking all the time and you can't grind all the time: it's finding the right balance."

Amla has first-hand experience of the search for that equilibrium. As his career has progressed, scoring rates in the longest format have quickened and Amla has had to adapt accordingly. He has gone from strike rates below 40 when he first began to almost touching 70 in the series against New Zealand last August and has evolved from purely an anchor to an accelerator, admitting team dynamics dictate which approach he takes.

"It takes many years as a team to find the right balance," he said. "Over the last 10 years I've played, we have gone through phases where we haven't found the balance and then we've found it and been successful as a batting unit. Then you lose it and then you find it. It happens. You go through ups and downs as a batting unit."

Since the retirements of Graeme Smith and Alviro Petersen, South Africa have struggled to settle on an opening pair and the constant search has caused a structural weakness. Often, they are one down early, leaving it to Amla to do a repair job which typically involves being tentative. But last summer, starting with the Australia series, Amla switched gears and seemed in a hurry in almost every innings. He was unusually rash in his shot selection and went through a slump, especially by his standards.

As Amla's temperament came into focus, it was thought that the influence of shorter formats was affecting his batting but it may actually have been the make-up of the XI. Amla's lean patch came at a time when South Africa were without AB de Villiers and when inconsistency crept into the line-up, so the responsibility on Amla would have been greater. With that at the back of his mind, his haste was understandable but at Trent Bridge, where South Africa levelled the series against a profligate England, glimpses of the Amla of old peeped out.

He showed more patience than in some of his recent stays at the crease and it is probably not a coincidence that the change came after South Africa made a major change to the line-up. Not only did they drop the underperforming JP Duminy but they installed the most in-form batsmen of the last year, Quinton de Kock, in his place at No.4. That seemed to bring the best out of Amla.

In the first innings, he shared in a 113-run third-wicket stand with de Kock which changed the tempo of a South Africa innings that started slowly in tough batting conditions. Though de Kock did not come off in the second innings, having him higher up appeared to help Amla find his rhythm. "When Quinton de Kock comes to the crease for us, he plays really freely and gets the scoreboard ticking," Amla. "That's what we love and we have no qualms if he nicks off playing an attacking shot because more often than not he comes off and is successful."

England have players of a similar style in Joe Root and Ben Stokes, who accumulate runs quickly, but in the second Test they lacked staying power, prompting a barrage of criticism from former players. Amla's advice is not to read too much into it. After all, South Africa were bundled out for 119 at Lord's and also suffered an embarrassing margin of defeat. "You can't look too much into it. We lost the first Test and the same questions you are posing to me you probably posed to Alastair Cook - sorry to Joe Root," Amla said, reminding himself who the England captain actually was.

Those questions are about the ability of batting line-ups to build innings, rather than blast their way to a total, and Amla has already proved he has some answers. Especially at The Oval, where he became his country's only triple-centurion. His unbeaten 311 spanned 790 minutes - the sixth longest in Test history - and he did not change his gloves once in that time. It was an innings that spoke as much to South Africa's resilience as to his own resoluteness and it ultimately set South Africa up for a series win.

That day, Amla's attitude was simple. "I remember just trying to bat as long as I can and thankfully I did," he said.

So how much will that innings be in Amla's mind when he walks out to bat in this match? "I think we passed that five years ago," he said. "A lot of cricket has happened in between. I don't think there will be any thoughts of that. I find that with things that happened in the past, generally, if you linger on it too long it becomes more of a distraction."

But he habours some hope he can do it again. "I've got the same name, I've trained as tough as I can train so for me it's about continuing that."