Confidence, obduracy and flair - that's Amla

Hashim Amla's patience could be one of South Africa's most important assets in the imminent Test series against the West Indies.

This most oft-quoted virtue is, of course, common to most successful top order Test batsmen. But Amla's patience runs uncommonly deep, and the West Indians are unusually dependent on the magic of momentum.

So when South Africa's first wicket falls in the Boxing Day Test in Port Elizabeth, the last thing the home side will want is another quick strike. Because, as we saw when four wickets crashed in six balls in the Standard Bank Pro20 at St George's Park on Sunday, nothing spurs the Windies on quite as readily as tumbling wickets.

As South Africa's number three, Amla is the point man if this tough job needs doing. And patience and discipline will be his most valuable tools.

Amla could also be the poster boy for sincere modesty, clean living, decency, bottomless niceness, and the joys of youth.

Those qualities may seem at odds with what it takes to achieve success in the modern world, never mind with the requirements for the nerveless few who sit steeled and padded up as they await the fall of that first wicket in a Test innings.

If number three batsmen are supposed to be paragons of technique and driven by the kind of arrogance that makes them believe everyone else in a cricket team - with the possible exception of the openers - are lower forms of life, then Amla has been hopelessly miscast.

But if the job is about employing equal measures of obduracy and flamboyance, and bringing a strong, clear mind to the crease, he is a bespoke number three.

Of course, we could sidestep the amateur psychology and find the answer in the scorebook. Amla has batted at number three in 22 of his 32 Test innings, and he has scored all five of his half-centuries as well as his three centuries in that position.

His No3 average of 43.65 compares favourably to his overall mark of 33.50. By comparison, as a number four, albeit in just three Tests, he averages 17.50.

Amla made his debut at number five against India in Kolkata in 2004-05, scoring 24 and two.

So, number three would seem to be the position in which Amla best serves South Africa's cause. But it's only recently that he has laid claim to that spot in compelling fashion.

His promising 71 in the first innings of the first Test against Pakistan in Karachi in October was followed by scores of nought, 10, 17 and 12. Worse, he was out bowled three times in the course of those five innings, renewing old fears that his technique was not up the rigours of Test batting.

Amla scored that 12 in the first innings against New Zealand at the Wanderers. It may seem as if that match was played an age ago, but in fact it was just last month.

Perhaps that's what happens when past failures are buried under a pile of runs. Amla's second bite at the cherry against New Zealand was worth an undefeated 176, his career-best performance. A week later, in his only innings in the second Test at Centurion, he made 103.

New bat? New grip? New attitude? "I haven't changed much, I'm doing mostly the same things," Amla said.

"Over the years I've never been the most technically correct batsman, so I've depended on the mental side quite a lot," he said. "It's a matter of breaking big things down into simpler tasks, that's my way of dealing with the challenge.

"It does take time to get used to batting at number three because it is so intense. But my confidence is high, and the idea is to carry that forward."

Amla's centuries against the Kiwis were scored in the company of another player whose mind might be described as a fortress. Indeed, Jacques Kallis has perfected the art of batting within an impregnable bubble, an approach that has been emphatically vindicated this season with a glut of five centuries and a half-century in his last seven Test innings.

In the process, the Amla-Kallis partnership has become a thing of dread for opponents: 170 in Karachi, 330 at the Wanderers, 220 in Centurion.

Come December 26, the Amla-Kallis axis will be called on to click into action again.