5 batsmen who score runs even on the worst pitches
The difference between the good and the great is a fine one. In the field of sports, the debates regarding this rage till the end of time. For a sport like, say, football, the different is a lot more apparent than it is in cricket.In the field of cricket, judging the difference is hard because of the subtlety of conditions. Generally, most batsmen labelled as 'good' have a 40+ average in 50-over games. The fact that pitches these days are usually flat and batsmen-friendly makes it incredibly hard to decipher the better from the best.But every once in a while, matches happen on pitches that are more erratic than the Test career of Rohit Sharma (another flat-deck player). And in those games, we see which player is truly the best.When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.And here are 5 such players who become as immovable as the Himalayas amidst a tempest.
#1 Hashim Amla
The current scenario of cricket is a pretty swashbuckling one. People prefer the likes of Chris Gayle, AB De Villiers and Virat Kohli than the likes of Chanderpaul, Laxman and so on. In a time like this, it is hard to find a batsman with an insane amount of resolution and grit.
However, there is always an exception in every generation and Hashim Amla is one of them. The pitch is tricky? The love affair between the ball and the track is much better than that in Twilight? The ball is moving around like a snake? Doesn’t matter.
For Amla, no matter what the conditions are, he can and almost always does the best among the rest. The most recent example would be his almost inhuman performance against India some days ago as his sublime technique and timeless patience made him the only batsman in the Proteas team to deliver on the potato patches which the Indian cricket team seemed to call 'pitches'.
However, the best moment that defined his greatness was his 25 runs in 159 balls innings against Sri Lanka, in a match that not only saw him score a 100 in the first innings but also establish South Africa's place as the number 1 ranked team in Tests.