Hashim Amla has announced he is to step down from his role as South Africa Test Captain with immediate effect. AB De Villiers has been confirmed as his replacement for the Third Test Match against England in Johannesburg.
Poor form causes questions
Amla has led the Proteas ever since the retirement of Graeme Smith in June 2014 and has numerous successes in the role, he was a key part of South Africa's elevation to the number one ranked Test side in the world. The batsman captained in 14 Test matches, winning four, drawing six and losing four. Recently however, things haven't gone South Africa's way.
They had a poor showing in India, where South Africa were completely demolished by the Indian bowling attack, while India's batting line up took apart the Proteas' bowlers. Their fortunes hadn't looked to be improving either following a heavy defeat by England in the first test match, with Amla's captaincy coming under increasing scrutiny. Amla has been criticised recently in the press as he was accused of being a complacent captain, only making changes when neccessary rather than pro-actively looking to win the Tests.
Amla's batting has come under fire aswell, the normally prolific run-scorer averaged just 22.81 in 2015, and it looked to be more of the same from Amla when he twice failed in the Boxing Day's test, scoring just seven and 12 in two innings.
Recent resurgence
The timing of Amla's resignation is surprising, his decision was confirmed to the press just hours after the drawn test match between South Africa and England, yet many thought this test had shown a return to form for the Proteas side. Amla returned a double century and made some smart captaincy decisions to make inroads into England's batting line up in their second innings, before poor weather ended the game early.
CREDIT: ecb.co.uk
The batsman was quick to confirm however that this decision hadn't been made during this test match, but had instead been considered for over two weeks before this announcement.
De Villiers to step in
AB De Villiers has been confirmed as Amla's replacement for the third test, in Johannesburg eight days from now. The destructive batsman already leads the Proteas in the One-Day format and called his promotion to Test Captain as "an incredible honour" and a "realisation of a lifelong dream". It hasn't been confirmed whether or not De Villiers will be captain in the long term after he admitted he needed to manage his workload while rumours where also circulating that the batsman was ready to retire from test cricket.