A
360° player was known to cricket fans worldwide until last week, when he took a brilliant
catch of his career (one of the best for me!), getting a new title as
“Spiderman”, by his captain.
All
went normal till yesterday, when sudden news came out as AB de Villiers
announced his retirement from all forms of international cricket. That was
really hard to accept for one of my colleague, as he is die-hard fan from the
very beginning.
AB
de Villiers started playing for South African Cricket team (Debut for Test
format) in the year 2004 against England. He and Dale Steyn started in the same
match. He opened the batting at first, after tremendous perfomances, he was
switched between middle orders and at 8th position, to keep up the wicket. It
was his extraordinary skills that got him the title ‘360° player’. He was able
to hit any ball, any where, to any bowler.
After
a brief slump in form in 2006 and 2007, de Villiers' returned early in 2008
with a blistering 103 not out off 109 balls in Durban against West Indies.
Later that year, he became the first South African to score a double-century
against India with his undefeated 217 at Ahmedabad. He topped that up with 174
at Leeds in South Africa's first series win in England since readmission and a
106* against Australia in Perth in the country's first series win in Australia
post-readmission. That was de Villiers' best Test year, with 1061 runs at
58.94.
He
first came close to that again in 2010, when he scored 996 runs in the calendar
year. His 278* against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi gave him the highest individual
score by a South African in Test cricket (Hashim Amla later scored a
triple-century). That same year, de Villiers also struck three successive ODI
centuries - two against India and one against West Indies.
The
second time he came within touching distance of four figures in a Test calendar
year was in 2013 when he scored 933 runs to ensure South Africa kept the Test
mace they won in 2012. By then, de Villiers had also accepted the
responsibility of full-time Test gloveman after Mark Boucher's retirement, as
well as the ODI and T20 captaincy after Graeme Smith stepped down. He later
handed over the T20 reigns to Faf du Plessis.
De
Villiers blossomed with the additional responsibility, even as concerns over a
chronic back injury grew. He was relieved from keeping in shorter formats to
concentrate on captaincy when Quinton de Kock was included in South African
squad. By 2014, he had also handed the Test keeper's gloves to de Kock. That
seemed a sensible decision because Smith retired in March that year and de
Villiers was believed to be the natural successor. However, he was overlooked
in favour of Amla.
That
did nothing to dim de Villiers' resolve. He came back with even more striking
power than before and in January 2015 broke the record for the fastest ODI
century, reaching it in just 31 balls against West Indies at the Wanderers.
That was the loudest warning cry he could have made for South Africa's chances
at the 2015 World Cup, but it proved a false one. Despite inspirational
leadership from de Villiers, who routinely called his team "the best"
at the tournament, South Africa bowed out at semi-final stage.
The
one stage de Villiers did not set alight was international T20 cricket, where
he often found himself batting too low in the line-up and with not enough time
to make an impact. He rectified that through the IPL, where he was one of the
Royal Challengers Bangalore's most successful players. In a memorable match in
the 2014 edition of the competition, de Villiers smacked his countryman Steyn
for 23 runs in one over.
With
de Villiers in high demand from foreign leagues, his workload became a talking
point in the 2015-16 summer when he suggested he would have to look at ways to
lighten the load. There were rumours of early retirement but those were quashed
when he was asked to stand in as Test captain when Amla gave up the job
mid-series against England. It was a job de Villiers had always wanted and
accepted immediately. He was appointed permanent Test captain in January 2016.
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