RCB centurion reflects on his second IPL ton and reveals the secret behind his immaculate stroke-play
Some call him superhuman, some say he is not from this planet, many feel he is the best in the business at the moment, but AB de Villiers believes he is only as good as his last performance – As simple as it gets. If his last performance is taken into consideration, then he indeed is superhuman and out of the world. Around evening at the Wankhede stadium, as a gentle breeze blew around the ground, AB de Villiers decided to add a bit more to the wind with his own breezy stroke-play. Gaps in the field were found out with geometric precision, adjustments in the crease – so synonymous to AB’s book of batting – were made with relative ease and the results not surprisingly went in his favour. There was hardly any place in the ground left where de Villiers failed to manage a run. Every nook and corner of the ground had AB’s runs written on it. He was batting on 40 at the end of 10 overs and added 93 more in the next ten, in the process bringing up his second IPL hundred.
It was almost a flawless innings that gave the Mumbai Indians barely any scent of his wicket; instead it was AB who motored away with his batting pyrotechnics leaving a Mumbai crowd mesmerized in the wield of his willow. Such was an immaculate batting on display that the crowd went “A-B A-B” at the end of his innings. When de Villiers was asked by iplt20.com to rate this knock among the other top knocks he had played in international cricket as well, he replied, “I certainly have played better innings and this is the same as any other innings.” Modesty anyone? “I won’t say this is the best I have played, I have played much better before but things went my way today. I tried to stick to my game plan as much as possible. I tried to keep it simple and that is what I did right throughout my innings,” he continued.
It wasn’t a knock that had brute force written all over it. There were nimble feet movements, just four hits for sixes, but 19 hits to the boundary – a facet of his game that showed his ability to hit the balls where he wanted to and that too with a high success rate. He credited his international experience and understanding of his own game to his success in the middle. “It has probably got to do a lot with experience,” he begins to elaborate. “I have played the game for a long time now and most batsmen will tell you that it comes with experience. I am a professional cricketer and played a whole lot of years now. Yes, maybe back in the day all the other sports other than cricket that I played helped me to put some of those skills in my cricket. But I have played the game for eleven years now in the international level. I know my game pretty well and that is the secret to success in most sports. I feel the same every single time I play. I just try and earn my right to get on top of the bowlers and that is how I play every game.”
New records were being set in Mumbai as the Royal Challengers Bangalore marched their way to a mammoth 235 in 20 overs. de Villiers along with RCB captain Virat Kohli stitched an unbeaten 215-run stand which was the biggest-ever partnership in the history of IPL. While Kohli exclaimed batting with AB as an ‘absolute pleasure’, de Villiers spoke about keeping things simple while batting with someone of Kohli’s calibre. “He is a little more intense than me at the wicket. I try and keep it really simple. We don’t say too much but we just talked about keeping the intensity up throughout the innings and try to maximize our innings as much as possible.”
That they did and at the end of the day the intensity was too hot to handle for the men in blue. RCB recorded a much needed comprehensive 39-run victory in the bargain and it was a job well done by the men in red and gold. Virat Kohli before the start of the tournament pointed at the big three in the side playing with a lot of freedom and “expressing” themselves to the hilt and how well has the trio been successful in doing so. AB in particular claimed to be enjoying his time at the top of the order. “I have always wanted to play at the top of the order. From the day I started playing T20 cricket I always wanted to bat at the top three and I am very thankful for the fact that Royal Challengers Bangalore has given me the chance to bat at three now,” he said.
As de Villiers went about his business breaking milestone after milestone, the social media went berserk applauding his superhuman efforts. While Irfan Pathan joked about writing an official complaint against AB de Villiers and requested all other bowlers to join him, Australia opener and Sunrisers Hyderabad captain David Warner went on to label AB as the best batsman in world cricket.
What an innings by @ABdeVilliers17 as I said before best batter in world cricket!!
— David Warner (@davidwarner31) May 10, 2015
“That is the fantastic compliment from a great player himself,” de Villiers reacted to Warner’s tweet. “I am at top of the game at the moment but I know this game knocks you down very quickly. I try and keep my feet on the ground and keep working at my game. I know you are only as good as your last game. I am already thinking of my next performance and I have moved on from what happened today.” That’s AB for you – immaculate in his words, just like his game itself.
