In hindsight it’s surprising that it took this long. Many an Afridi fan refused to admit the significance of Corey Anderson’s hundred in an ODI game just to protect their man’s record. But their protestations are now irrelevant as AB de Villiers has pretty much decimated Anderson’s record too. And even as he was doing it, it still made sense – for no one better illustrates the ninth gear that batting has found in the post-T20 age. Within hours of him having done the deed it felt like something appropriate had been achieved.
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However de Villiers is no mere slogger, as Afridi or Anderson may be described by their critics; he’s probably the best batsman in the world. And yet he is also the rarest of beasts – a modern great who is actually underrated. In an age where everything is shinier, better and more hyped up than before, de Villiers’ achievements seem to be classed alongside those whom he has bettered.
In a sense the closest analogy to him might be Novak Djokovic. Since becoming the world number 1 in July of 2011 (by which time one could argue he’d already been the best player in the world for six months) Djokovic led the ATP rankings for more than two-thirds of the following 186 weeks. And yet he still plays second fiddle to bigger names. De Villiers, though, doesn’t even have Djokovic’s polarizing personality, he is what Djokovic’s game is: without weaknesses, strength in every discipline and a continual desire to improve even when you are the best in the world.
It’s been common, in both rugby and cricket, to deride South Afican teams as full of straight faced, boring Afrikaners who can’t quite reach the mountaintop. De Villiers, for too many it seems, is a continuation of that legacy. But a look at just his numbers alone point to how extraordinary he is; he has been at the mountaintop even when his team hasn’t.
Have to say @ABdeVilliers17 is the definition of a Cricketing Genius … absolutely incredible… #31BallTon
— Michael Vaughan (@MichaelVaughan) January 18, 2015
I demand a DNA test of AB DeVilliers…this game is only for humans. #superhuman #WhatAPlayer
— Aakash Chopra (@cricketaakash) January 18, 2015
Nowadays it is said that the measure of a true ODI great is to achieve the 50-90 (average of 50, strike rate of 90) consistently. Dhoni has done it twice in the past six years, Sangakkara hasn’t done it even once, Watson has done it once, Amla has done it twice during that time and Kohli, often considered the best of the lot, has done it thrice. De Villiers, meanwhile has done it in each of the past six years, including four years where he did the 50-100, something only Watson (in 2011) and Amla (in 2010) have done even once. Based purely on numbers de Villiers ought to be considered the crème de la crème of modern ODI batsmen.
He’s also averaged over 55 in Tests in five of the last seven years, with the two “down years” being 2011 and 2014 when he averaged in the late 40s – not exactly a slump by most definitions. The biggest problem for de Villiers, across formats, remains the problem with so many sportsmen in the era of Twitter where everything is for the moment and everything is forgotten within moments.
The problem with de Villiers is he’s never been part of the greater narrative, scored an innings that he’s defined by. His consistency almost seems to work against him in such cases. For instance, everyone remembers South Africa chasing down 414 in the fourth innings in Perth in 2008/09, probably the beginning of South Africa’s supremacy in the five day game. That match, and series, is defined by Graeme Smith leading his team from the front and winning that series for the Proteas. Yet in that first Test match, SA’s first win in Australia for fourteen years, de Villiers was the top scorer and the man-of-the-match, following his fifty in the first innings with an unbeaten century to finish the job.
Even last year, as Mitchell Johnson went on his berserker spree it was de Villiers who stood between him and an easy victory for the Australians. In the first Test de Villiers scored 91 and 48 as South Africa were bowled out for a combined 406 runs in their two innings. In the 2nd Test he scored a first innings hundred to build the platform for South Africa to tie the series. And in the final Test as Johnson and Harris ran rampant he scored 43 in over five hours in the fourth innings to try and stop the inexorable– his number of minutes and balls faced in that innings were twice what anyone else achieved in that innings. And yet you imagine that even if South Africa had achieved the draw in that match the garlands would have been reserved for someone else.
For me the perfect encapsulation of his greatness was their series at home to Pakistan in 2013. Even before the series started the South African management had pointed to Saeed Ajmal as Pakistan’s main weapon, and they mentioned him so often that you wondered if he was in their heads. After rolling through the first Test following a typical Pakistani collapse South Africa found themselves in a hole on day 2 at Cape Town, Pakistans 338 had been followed by South Africa’s 109 for 5. It was at this moment that de Villiers took control, he played 29 balls in Ajmal’s remaining 8 overs of the day and killed the momentum that Pakistan had. The following morning he completed his fifty and laid the platform for Robin Peterson’s assault which ended up swinging the series back in South Africa’s favour. That whole series was really a tribute to how good de Villiers is. He scored 352 runs in the Tests, Amla (with 286) was the only other South African batsmen to score over 130 runs in the series.
In the ODIs he scored 65, 4, 128, 75 and 95 not out – no other batsmen in his team had more than one innings of 50+. After one of the ODIs I asked a South African batsman about their strategies against the different Pakistani bowlers, it was his answer that signified De Villiers greatness for me. In his words he could outshine the opposition bowlers “most of the time” but with Ajmal the strategy simply was to “get off strike and let AB handle him.” Even in the best team in the world one man stood out.
But since that Pakistan series did not involve the Big Three it might as well have not happened.
In conclusion, perhaps the sports analogy that de Villiers deserves is not with Djokovic but with Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo; for they too have made the extraordinary routine and their performances are also judged not by their successes (because they are “supposed” to be that successful) but by their rare failures. All de Villiers needs to cement his legacy as an all time great is a signature performance with the eyes of the world on him. On an unrelated note, the World Cup starts in less than a month.
