A hollow feeling for Proteas as Amla, Steyn walk away South Africa bids farewell to two of the greatest

The fact, however, is that while AB’s departure was greeted with shock and a certain amount of disbelief, the exit of Steyn and Amla had a certain degree of writing on the wall quality about it. Talking about Amla first, the affable character had this rare quality of owning up for any of the team’s or personal frailties if the situation demanded — and the 36-year-old’s retirement is only a vindication of that.

The way he stepped aside from Test captaincy in the middle of a Test series — which he handled in 14 Test matches between 2014 and 2015-16 ostensibly to focus on his batting — is a case in point. A self-effacing character, he never really looked comfortable in the leadership role and instead wanted to focus on piling up the runs in his unobtrusive fashion.

The records would speak for themselves, but the one aspect of his craft which often gets overlooked is the equal degree of felicity which he showed in both the longer and 50-over formats. If he was the only South African batsman to score a triple century in Tests, Amla was also the quickest to reach the landmarks of 2000 to 7000 ODI runs — no mean feat this. However, the famous consistency seemed to have been deserting him for sometime now — while a poor outing in the World Cup certainly played its part in Amla taking the call once again.