County Championship 2021: Twitter goes berserk after Hashim Amla scores 37 off 278, gets compared with Cheteshwar Pujara

Former South African international Hashim Amla is getting high praises from all across the world after saving the match for his county team, Surrey in the ongoing County Championship 2021. Playing against Hampshire in Southampton, Amla produced a marathon knock which garnered the attention of fans from all over the world. 

After resuming the final day from 6 for 2, Amla managed to stay unbeaten for 37 from 278 balls. From one end, wickets kept falling down giving a scare or two to Surrey, but Amla held the other end, managing to keep his team to a fighting win and saved them from a defeat. The former Proteas batter received a lot of appreciation on social media and was even compared to Cheteshwar Pujara.

Amla started the innings in the steadiest way possible. In his first 100 balls, the right-handed batter scored only three runs. During the knock, he hit five boundaries, the first of which came on his 125th ball. His strike rate during this innings was 13.31, which is the second-lowest during a first-class innings for him. 

“I did enjoy it” – Hashim Amla after scoring 37 runs from 278 balls

Interestingly, he recorded his lowest strike rate during a Test match against India in 2015, where he was striking at 10.24 in a knock of 24 runs which came from 244 balls. Coming back to this match, Hampshire batted first and scored 488 runs, on the back of a 213-ball 174 by Colin de Grandhomme. Surrey managed only 72 runs in their first innings with Amla top-scoring with 29 runs. 

In the second innings, Amla came out to bat at no. 4, and Surrey found themselves in a spot of bother at 9 for 3. However, the 38-year-old held one end and kept tiring the Hampshire bowlers. Surrey ended the day on 122 for 8. 

“I did enjoy it. Every batter that went out there had a plan and [we] tried our best to just block it out. You don’t know how far you can go but we managed to go all the way. We had some nervous moments but the way the youngsters played was fantastic,” Amla was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times.

Here is how Twitter reacted on Amla’s marathon knock: