Rating the last five South African Test captains 

#4 Hashim Amla

Hashim Amla ahead of the fateful series against England

After Graeme Smith retired in 2014, South Africa's premier top-order batsman Hashim Amla was made the Test captain. He also became South Africa's first permanent non-white captain and in his very first series, he led the team to their first series win in Sri Lanka since 1993. South Africa won the two-game Test series 1-0.

Amla, in fact, played the pivotal innings in the second Test to save the game for South Africa. Success followed in the one-off Test against Zimbabwe and the home series against the West Indies.

However, after the 0-0 draw in the two-game Test series in Bangladesh, South Africa and Hashim Amla were up against their biggest Test. They were to tour India for a 4 game Test series in 2015 and considering the fact that they had drawn the previous two series to that country 1-1, there must have been optimism in the side. After all, they had beaten Sri Lanka at their den in 2014.

What awaited them was something else though and on tracks that turned square from the first day, South Africa were completely destroyed by India in the first Test. They ended up losing the series 3-0 and in all probability, it would have been 4-0 had the second Test in Bengaluru not been washed out due to rain.

That series seemed to have taken the wind out of Amla and after the team lost the first Test of the home series against England, the writing seemed to be on the wall for the captain. He resigned after the drawn 2nd Test. Amla had captained South Africa in 14 Tests, won 4, drawn 6 and lost 4. He recorded a win percentage of only 28.57.