I always hated captaining against Amla, says Clarke

Former Australian skipper Michael Clarke has admitted that he hated captaining when veteran South African batsman Hashim Amla used to be at the crease.

"I always hated having to captain against him because he's so hard to set field to,"Sport24 quoted Clarke as saying.

"He bases his game around a great defence and he finds ways to be successful across all three formats."

"The game of cricket is hard so he goes through some tough times but it shows his character to be able to sustain that, get through that and turn things around," he added.

The 33-year-old right handed batsman will on Thursday become the eighth Proteas player to reach 100 Test caps when his side take on Sri Lanka in the third and final Test of the three-match series in Johannesburg.

Calling Amla, who currently averages 49.45 with the bat and has scored 25 Test hundreds, a "lovely man", the former Australian skipper said, "I'm not a big one for statistics. I never really cared much about statistics when I played. It was more the way you played and the way you helped your team have success."

Amla remains the only South African to have scored a triple century when he scored 311* against England at the Oval back in 2012.

"Hash has certainly done that for South Africa over a long period of time. But if you look at his statistics, it shows what a great player he is," Clarke said.

"More importantly, he's a lovely man. On behalf of all of Australia, I'd like to congratulate him on playing 100 Test matches," he added.

Amla has played 17 Test matches against Australia and has scored at an healthy average of 45.93, including five centuries.