Abrahama Benjamin De Villiers, the 31-year-old South African is all set to play his 100th Test at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium at Bengaluru on the 14th of November 2015 vs India.
The man has been in phenomenal form in the last one year, scoring the fastest hundred off 31 balls vs the West Indies, scoring runs by the dozen during the ICC World Cup 2015.
Even in the recently concluded ODI and T20I series vs India, de Villiers has been in amazing form. HE scored 3 hundreds in 5 ODIs vs India.
He is the only batsman in ODIs to average over 50 with a strike-rate of 100+.
Am sure most of you'll have read about his multiple sports achievements, having played Rugby, Badminton, Tennis, Swimming and what not.
In short, this guy is a genius.
In cricket, as in any other sport, there always comes a time when an athlete goes through a purple patch. A time when he doesn't seem to do any thing wrong and reaches heights never thought achievable.
In cricket, they say you reach that time around your 30s. You tend to reach your maturity in every sense of the word and have a better understanding of your own game. That to me, seems like the case with a certain Mr. ABD.
There is no denying that the way he has been playing it looks impossible to stop him. But if you've been a die-had cricket fan you'd remember the same happening with Mathew Hayden when he had come to India in 1999, same happened with Graeme Smith, Alastair Cook, Saeed Anwar, Kumar Sangakkara, Sanath Jayasuriya...and the list is endless.
But we dare not mix these mortals with the genius that is a ABD or even a Sachin Tendulkar,
As much as I agree that the man is special and has a lot of time to play his shots and infact can play more than the shots in the book, I feel that he isn't all no-chinks-in-my-armour!
If you saw the first innings of the first Test at Mohali and saw de Villiers' batting, you will know what am talking about.
For the first few runs ABD was like fish out of water. Saying he was clueless would be an understatement. He had no clue how to play spin on a turning track. His go-to method has been to attack when not sure. Which works for someone as talented as him, but that too didn't seem to be working.
Put him in a spot against quality and you never know...ABD the genius or....
The man has been in phenomenal form in the last one year, scoring the fastest hundred off 31 balls vs the West Indies, scoring runs by the dozen during the ICC World Cup 2015.
Even in the recently concluded ODI and T20I series vs India, de Villiers has been in amazing form. HE scored 3 hundreds in 5 ODIs vs India.
He is the only batsman in ODIs to average over 50 with a strike-rate of 100+.
Am sure most of you'll have read about his multiple sports achievements, having played Rugby, Badminton, Tennis, Swimming and what not.
In short, this guy is a genius.
In cricket, as in any other sport, there always comes a time when an athlete goes through a purple patch. A time when he doesn't seem to do any thing wrong and reaches heights never thought achievable.
In cricket, they say you reach that time around your 30s. You tend to reach your maturity in every sense of the word and have a better understanding of your own game. That to me, seems like the case with a certain Mr. ABD.
There is no denying that the way he has been playing it looks impossible to stop him. But if you've been a die-had cricket fan you'd remember the same happening with Mathew Hayden when he had come to India in 1999, same happened with Graeme Smith, Alastair Cook, Saeed Anwar, Kumar Sangakkara, Sanath Jayasuriya...and the list is endless.
But we dare not mix these mortals with the genius that is a ABD or even a Sachin Tendulkar,
As much as I agree that the man is special and has a lot of time to play his shots and infact can play more than the shots in the book, I feel that he isn't all no-chinks-in-my-armour!
If you saw the first innings of the first Test at Mohali and saw de Villiers' batting, you will know what am talking about.
For the first few runs ABD was like fish out of water. Saying he was clueless would be an understatement. He had no clue how to play spin on a turning track. His go-to method has been to attack when not sure. Which works for someone as talented as him, but that too didn't seem to be working.
Put him in a spot against quality and you never know...ABD the genius or....
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