When Hashim Amla arrived for the last pre-match press conference of his stint as South Africa's stand-in one-day captain, he looked a relieved man. He sat down a little too casually, facing the room at an oblique angle instead of straight on, with his arm draped across the chair next to him. He wore a shirt that hung lazily down to his pants, a cap tilted a little too much to one side and a Sunday-afternoon smile that said he was quite pleased he would only have to perform this duty once more.
"If I have to do it in the future, I would take some time to consider it," Amla said. A reluctant leader, Amla was thrust into the job after a finger injury to AB de Villiers ruled him out of the limited-overs leg of the home series against Australia. Knowing that his acceptance of the vice-captaincy meant the possibility of having to fill in, Amla took on the role with little complaint.
He put aside the reservation he had before and must have been trying to forget that he had stepped down from captaining his franchise, the Dolphins, because it affected his batting. A freak run-out in the first Twenty20 international in Cape Town might have reignited his doubts, a shaky four before being bowled by Doug Bollinger in the second T20 would have fuelled them, but a solid-looking 24 in the first ODI might have eased his nerves. It was the duck, off the leading edge, in Port Elizabeth, that may have rubber-stamped Amla's concerns about taking on the dual role. A few years ago, he may have wanted nothing more than to take cover and spurn the captaincy, but now he is able to see the more positive side of leadership.
"Although I haven't contributed with the bat, if I wasn't captain I probably wouldn't have much to smile about," Amla said, joking about his form. His lean patch has meant that he has had to measure success in other ways and the captaincy has allowed him to do that. Although he hopes to end the run-drought at his home ground in Durban, he said clinching the series would provide him with as much to celebrate. "It will mean a lot. Everyone wants to have a positive impact so it would be fantastic."
If South Africa win the series, Amla will be the fifth South African captain since readmission to earn a trophy in his first ODI series, after Shaun Pollock, Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis and Johan Botha. It will go a long way to proving his credentials as a leader and show whether he has developed enough as a player to perform the task again. "It does take a bit of time getting used to. I don't want to rush into things," he said. "I've learnt a lot. I try and keep an open mind about learning as I go along."
Amla has been able to call on the experience of two former captains, Smith and Botha, and said he felt secure knowing that "I've some very solid guys in the field who can give me advice."
South Africa will need all their resources to break the series deadlock, after coming back from being 1-0 down. It's a situation from which they have managed to win series from before but after their quarter-final loss in the 2011 World Cup their resilience in tough situations is not yet trusted. While Michael Hussey billed the game a "grand final," Amla said South Africa do not see it that way. "We are not putting a lot of pressure on ourselves. The last game was a final for us; we had to win it, and the way the guys came out to play was an inspiration."
He said elements such as "team culture and playing with a positive mind-set" are more important to South Africa than just results. "The way JP [Duminy] and David Miller played in the last game, those are important things for the team in the long-term," he said.
With rain almost certain to play a part in Friday's match and South Africa's poor record both in Duckworth-Lewis-affected matches and in Durban, the odds appear stacked against them. In typically calm fashion, Amla said none of those things will have an impact on him or his team-mates. "I don't think anybody has too much baggage from what happened in the past."