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Comment: Rob Houwing, Sport24 chief writer
Cape Town – AB de Villiers and three of his Proteas colleagues were recently recognised as ideal “men for all seasons” in a magazine study.
In an interesting little exercise, The Wisden Cricketer (UK) picked a team of worldwide players they considered best suited to one line-up for a hypothetical match in each of the three major formats: a Test, one-day international and Twenty20 international.
Records in all three arenas were examined and South Africans’ versatility was honoured by all of De Villiers, Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis and Dale Steyn cracking the XI chosen – thus the Proteas were the most heavily represented outfit, ahead of Sri Lanka who boasted three picks in Tillakaratne Dilshan, Kumar Sangakkara and Muttiah Muralitharan.
Also getting the nod were Messrs Virender Sehwag (India), Shane Watson (Australia), Umar Gul (Pakistan) and Daniel Vettori New Zealand).
Kallis and Steyn, of course, have only enhanced their T20 credentials in recent weeks, their respective batting and bowling mastery powering the Bangalore Royal Challengers into the semi-finals of the Indian Premier League, while the Rajasthan Royals’ Smith was unfortunately removed from the bulk of the tournament after suffering a finger injury.
Very much the odd man out, then, has been De Villiers, a strangely peripheral figure toward the business end of the IPL as his Delhi Daredevils franchise missed out on semis qualification.
For a player so highly regarded as a middle-order danger-man across the planet, the Titans stroke-player having such a well-nigh wretched tournament – and benched for seven of the Daredevils’ last eight matches – has been unexpected, to say the least.
He had been tipped in some circles for a “big” IPL, after all, following notable personal success on Indian soil not long before it: he blazed two centuries and 241 runs over the course of the three-match ODI series and was dismissed only once.
So it is hard to believe, amidst the frenzied pace and razzmatazz of the IPL, that De Villiers has suddenly succumbed to any chronic technical issues or confidence paralysis as a batsman: this, of course, is a format of the game where you get no chance to “knuckle down” out in the middle to recapture your mojo when you stumble into a lean trot.
Still, there will be at least some consternation among the South African brains trust --with departure for the ICC World Twenty20 in the Caribbean scheduled for Saturday -- that De Villiers posted only 111 runs in seven IPL innings at 15.85.
It has been a strange old season for the dashing right-hander generally, and a rare one for him in the sense that he failed to register a Test century, averaging a respectable but not earth-shattering 39.42 in the home series against England and then only 22.66 over the course of the two Tests in India.
My own belief is that De Villiers, who has shown searing “bounce-back ability” before, will get it right in a green shirt in the Caribbean, having inadvertently benefitted from a rare spell away from the middle and the opportunity that presents for mental refreshment on a ceaselessly crowded cricket itinerary.
Mind you, a first-class match or two might have been just what the doctor ordered for someone like De Villiers -- no such luck, of course, as the T20 circus instead simply switches, voila, to a different corner of the globe …
Cape Town – AB de Villiers and three of his Proteas colleagues were recently recognised as ideal “men for all seasons” in a magazine study.
In an interesting little exercise, The Wisden Cricketer (UK) picked a team of worldwide players they considered best suited to one line-up for a hypothetical match in each of the three major formats: a Test, one-day international and Twenty20 international.
Records in all three arenas were examined and South Africans’ versatility was honoured by all of De Villiers, Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis and Dale Steyn cracking the XI chosen – thus the Proteas were the most heavily represented outfit, ahead of Sri Lanka who boasted three picks in Tillakaratne Dilshan, Kumar Sangakkara and Muttiah Muralitharan.
Also getting the nod were Messrs Virender Sehwag (India), Shane Watson (Australia), Umar Gul (Pakistan) and Daniel Vettori New Zealand).
Kallis and Steyn, of course, have only enhanced their T20 credentials in recent weeks, their respective batting and bowling mastery powering the Bangalore Royal Challengers into the semi-finals of the Indian Premier League, while the Rajasthan Royals’ Smith was unfortunately removed from the bulk of the tournament after suffering a finger injury.
Very much the odd man out, then, has been De Villiers, a strangely peripheral figure toward the business end of the IPL as his Delhi Daredevils franchise missed out on semis qualification.
For a player so highly regarded as a middle-order danger-man across the planet, the Titans stroke-player having such a well-nigh wretched tournament – and benched for seven of the Daredevils’ last eight matches – has been unexpected, to say the least.
He had been tipped in some circles for a “big” IPL, after all, following notable personal success on Indian soil not long before it: he blazed two centuries and 241 runs over the course of the three-match ODI series and was dismissed only once.
So it is hard to believe, amidst the frenzied pace and razzmatazz of the IPL, that De Villiers has suddenly succumbed to any chronic technical issues or confidence paralysis as a batsman: this, of course, is a format of the game where you get no chance to “knuckle down” out in the middle to recapture your mojo when you stumble into a lean trot.
Still, there will be at least some consternation among the South African brains trust --with departure for the ICC World Twenty20 in the Caribbean scheduled for Saturday -- that De Villiers posted only 111 runs in seven IPL innings at 15.85.
It has been a strange old season for the dashing right-hander generally, and a rare one for him in the sense that he failed to register a Test century, averaging a respectable but not earth-shattering 39.42 in the home series against England and then only 22.66 over the course of the two Tests in India.
My own belief is that De Villiers, who has shown searing “bounce-back ability” before, will get it right in a green shirt in the Caribbean, having inadvertently benefitted from a rare spell away from the middle and the opportunity that presents for mental refreshment on a ceaselessly crowded cricket itinerary.
Mind you, a first-class match or two might have been just what the doctor ordered for someone like De Villiers -- no such luck, of course, as the T20 circus instead simply switches, voila, to a different corner of the globe …
