Two years, eight months, four days and 78.2 kilometres separate Kevin Pietersen from Hashim Amla in lifespan and birthplace. In life and cricket they are worlds apart.
Two young men from the same part of South Africa, Kwa-Zulu Natal, have turned out as differently as the two places they are from: Pietermaritzburg and Durban. On the face of it, the similarities are obvious between the towns, as they are with the men. They are both professional sportsmen, cricketers, batsmen, who operate in crucial position at the top of the order, products of top South African schools and performers in a sport that is thriving.
Look deeper and you will realise that Pietermaritzburg has no sea and the gap between the two is as wide as the Indian Ocean. That calm, vast mass of blue represents of the oceans between Pietersen and Amla. The former has made as many enemies as the latter has made friends. Pietersen has played for four domestic teams and has had altercations at every one. Amla has played peacefully for one, the same team that Pietersen started at.
It was in the year 2000 that Pietersen decided to use politics to justify why he was not getting picked regularly for Kwa-Zulu Natal. Pietersen said the quota system was to blame for him being overlooked. In fact, it was that he was nothing more than a mediocre off spinner who, although dedicated to fitness and hard work, was hardly deserving of a regular place.
Pietersen packed up and flew to England where he played for Nottinghamshire. Three years later, he asked to be released from his contract blaming the pitch at Trent Bridge for his lack of runs. A move to Hampshire followed, where he stayed until he decided he could no longer live a small town life and wanted to live to London. In between, Pietersen qualified for England and blended self-assurance, with skill, to emerge as one of their best batsmen. When the explosive Pietersen takes to the crease, cricket fans around the world stop what they are doing and watch.
While Pietersen was battling the world, Amla was completing school at the alma mata of cricket legends Barry Richards and Lance Klusener, Durban Boys’ High. Apartheid South Africa caused Amla and his older brother, Ahmed, to be schooled apart. Ahmed is four years older and had to go to a school for pupils of Indian descent, as were the rules of the apartheid day. By the time Hashim reached high school, the doors of opportunity had opened and he was able to get specialised cricketing coaching, once the preserve of the privileged, on the playing fields of Durban Boys’ High.
Amla’s talent, despite a dodgy back lift, was obvious and he was selected for South Africa’s under-19 squad as soon as he was old enough. He went on to captain them as a reluctant leader.
As luck would have it, on the same day Amla made his Test debut for South Africa, Pietersen made his ODI debut for England. It was November 28, 2004. Amla was scratchy against India and his technique appeared flawed. He was dropped after three Tests and it took him almost two years to make his way back into the South African team.
Pietersen began batting for England in Zimbabwe, in a fairly low key fashion, but blossomed for his adopted country. He scored three centuries for England on the tour and showed that brash bullishness could breed success.
When Pietersen and Amla met eight years later, both their fortunes had changed. The former had suffered an unhappy stint as England captain, which ended almost as quickly as it began, but had established himself as a player who was the backbone of the English batting line-up. Aggressive, audacious and arrogant: Pietersen’s game is as dramatic as summer lightening. Multi-million dollar contracts, in the Indian Premier League, led Pietersen to a lucrative football-style club-over-country life. He lived the life and moved to fashionable Chelsea, where he hangs out with Frank Lampard and co.
By contrast, Amla took long to build to a crescendo. First, he mastered Test cricket, culminating in a double century in India. Then, he topped the rankings in ODIs and slowly made the transition to twenty-overs, something he is still working on. He was elevated to vice-captain of the limited-overs sides, under AB de Villiers, and skippered in De Villiers’ absence. His back lift became less pronounced, but only just, as he made what he had work for him.
Amla’s personal life was a world away from Chelsea and remained a secret. Amla married, his schoolteacher wife, Summaya, had their first child, a son, in January 2011, but to date, no-one in the media has seen either. The only hint that Amla had a life outside cricket was when promoted baby shoes and a brand of cold-drink for an online company.
Come England in July, the two men from KwaZulu Natal faced off in a battle to be the best team in the world. Amla struck the first blow by setting the South African record for the most runs in an innings with 311 at the Oval. Pietersen counter attacked 149 at Leeds to help England draw against the odds.
Then Pietersen, to use a cricketing metaphor, hit wicket. He sent text messages to members of the South African squad, deriding his team-mates. It was disapproved of by the England and Wales Cricket Board and they dropped him from the final, must-win match of the series. In that match, Amla scored his second century of the series and South Africa were crowned No.1 cricket team on the planet.
“I’m not even the second best batsman in my team,” Amla said modestly.
Amla dedicated the hundred to the team statistician, Prasanna Agoram, who had converted to Islam. It was Amla’s way of reiterating his commitment to his religion, something he holds so dear he refused to wear the sponsors’ logo because it was a beer brand.
Gestures a world away from the bling of Pietersen and Chelsea; gestures that were pure.

The Brash Battler  And The Quiet Man

It only took South Africa’s cricket team 20 years to become the top-ranked Test side in the world. Two decades—that was all—and do not let anyone tell you differently.
They will try. They will say that South Africa, along with England and Australia, were one of first teams to first contest the sport at the highest level more than 120 years ago. They would be only partially correct. The South Africa that played cricket on the international stage until 1970 represented merely white South Africa.
The rest, and there was a rest, were ignored. Thousands of hopefuls from Indian, colored and black communities had to make do with sub-standard facilities as they formed their own competition. The late Basil D’Oliveira was one of them. A sensation on the matting wickets in Cape Town, D’Oliveira had to emigrate to England—with the help of money collected by his friends and teammates—to stand a chance of playing first-class cricket. He played in the lower leagues in Lancashire and county cricket for Worcestershire to qualify for his adopted country. After a sensational 158 against the Australians, in 1968, he was selected to tour South Africa with England, a dream return. It was not to be as South Africa cancelled the tour in protest, which proved to be a pyrrhic victory, as it led to apartheid regime’s isolation from world sport.
All of these marginalized cricketers, who would have loved to watch D’Oliveira in his prime on the turf of the land of his birth, kept playing on rough pitches, despite knowing they would never have the chance to represent their country. They kept cricket alive to ensure talents like Hashim Amla and Vernon Philander could make it in the future.
In 1991, when South Africa was readmitted to international cricket, with a tour to India, amid a fanfare of publicity and a meeting with Mother Teresa; Amla and Philander were nine and seven years old respectively. Previously, people of their skin color would have had no chance of being picked for South Africa. The team they saw walk onto the field at Eden Gardens in Kolkata would not have done much for their hopes of change. It was an all-white team, as it had been in the 28 years before.
Slowly, too slowly some would say, the faces of South African cricket did change. Still, it is not perfect in its representation of the country. Its greatest failing is that the team who wrested the number one Test ranking from England in August did not include a single black cricketer. But it did contain both Amla and Philander, who were the two chief reasons Graeme Smith was able to wrap his fingers around the mace given to the best team in the world.
Amla’s triple-hundred in the first match was the overwhelming reason South Africa assumed total control and emerged victorious at the Oval. Philander’s five-wicket haul, on the final afternoon of the third Test at Lord’s, sealed the historic achievement.
In the immediate aftermath, euphoria made it too easy to forget all that South African sport had been through. For generations it was used as a divisive tool, to elevate the few and exclude the rest. The South Africa of 2012 is bridging the gap. Eight of the 16 members of the squad were of color, five played in the team in all three matches and all of them put in telling performances.
Alviro Petersen scored 182 in the second match, an influential innings of grit and grind, that its magnitude cannot emphasize enough. JP Duminy held the lower order together, twice at Lord’s, and Imran Tahir, although spoken of as the weakest link, took wickets at crucial times to open England up. On the sidelines, fast bowler Lonwabo Tsotsobe picked up a yard of pace and performed well in the practice matches.
<div id="attachment_1330" style="width: 235px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1330" class="size-medium wp-image-1330" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/000_Hkg7093550-225x300.jpg" alt="" width="225" height="300" />Head Coach of South Africa Gary Kirsten looks on before the start of day one of the third and final five day international cricket test match between New Zealand and South Africa at the Basin Reserve in Wellington on March 23, 2012. AFP PHOTO/MARTY MELVILLE</div>
Almost everyone in the team weighed in with performances. Smith and Jacques Kallis’ centuries in the first match, along with Dale Steyn’s fiery five wickets, hammered home South Africa’s authority. Morné Morkel’s continued improvement paid off as he showed greater control than before and AB de Villiers took on the extra job of wicket-keeping as if he was born to do it.
The team went as well together as red meat and a fine South African Pinotage. There is a difference between that and a collection of people in the same clothes with a similar goal, which is what South Africa were before they conquered England.
Like so much of the rest of the continent, they were always thought to have great potential and routinely fell short of fulfilling that. What tripped them up was never their skill on the field, it was what went on off it. A baby in modern cricket, South Africa had a lot of development to make in a short space of time. With the demons of the mind, formed by insecurities and an inability to win a World Cup, that was tough to do.
It took someone with creativity and a unique approach to man management to flick the switch. Gary Kirsten, who played for South Africa soon after their comeback and also coached India, was that man. He introduced ideas that would normally be laughed out of cricket circles, such as regular interaction with explorer, Mike Horn, to give the team an extra edge.
It also gave them the freedom to operate as individuals and to allow their personalities to come through. Kirsten, perhaps completely unknowingly, created the perfect space for someone of any background to feel important. In that environment both those who had always been part of the elite and those that had not were able to flourish. And that is the secret to South Africa’s current success.

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