AB de Villiers - Bigger than the sum of his parts

05/23/2018

BCCI

Farewell is always a sad occasion. If you managed to catch Andres Iniesta pulling on the Barcelona jersey one final time at the Camp Nou, as the legendary Spaniard made his last ever appearance for the club, you could sense the sadness in the air all around the stadium where he plied his trade.

Entire Catalonia rose up to salute one of their superstars and just like that, Iniesta, the magician, walked into the sunset, leaving behind a lasting legacy that any footballer would crave to cement. However, the fans were crying in desperation and the palpable disappointment in Catalonia was not very hard to understand. They were bidding farewell to one of their heroes who had a huge role to play in making Barcelona one of the biggest clubs in the country and finally landing Spain their first World Cup.

Cause, when the time moves on, the curtain comes down, the screen flickers and the credits roll on any glorious career, what remains for the fans is to revisit the edifice that their favourite sportsman built and trace the path he took on his way to achieving sporting greatness. This serves to seek a context which might help in defining the true impact of a career. And as AB de Villiers decided to call it a day from international cricket at the age of 34, after outclassing a host of bowlers on his way to establish himself as the benchmark for generations to come, he left behind a lasting legacy and infinite number of memories that will be replayed time and time again in the future.

For it, AB was unique - he was the redefinition of brilliance, and with him, there was always a sense of indefinable magic and an unattainable audacity. Not for nothing, he was Mr. 360, a man capable of doing anything and everything on the cricket field. He made everyone sit up and forced them to understand that class can can’t always be analyzed threadbare. All in all, he was one big package, a sheer genius.

Recent memory serves the best and I will go with my most recent AB memory. During the Durban Test against Australia, when the entire South African team were bamboozled by the angle of Mitchell Starc, AB was a class apart and stood tall to score an unbeaten 71, albeit on a losing cause. The innings was a steely reminder that South Africa still were not prepared to move on from him, as Faf du Plessis claimed to have done during the last year’s England tour, just yet. The innings came on a losing cause and looking at the innings, it was impossible for anyone, yes I repeat anyone, to put a finger on his effectiveness and longevity.

He may not be a player that the traditionalists in the world would have loved, but he had dollops of courage to transform into a tour de force of audacity and exquisite skill. Moreover, his batting was built on a careful foundation of superb hand-eye coordination and an inherent desire to send the ball to the boundary at any cost. AB, in a generation of crafty batsmen, was a rebel who opposed to being bound by the conventional boundary and became the one. And probably, at the moment, he was having one of the best phases of his career after making a comeback to Test cricket almost after two years and South Africa needed him the most, at least to rebuild the Test team on the back of Aiden Markram and this decision came as a shocker.

Anyone, who had watched the ICC World Cup semi-final in 2015, would surely admit that de Villiers is the ultimate patriot and hates losing for South Africa. And AB’s retirement came as a bombshell for everyone and it is sad. You wish you could forget to add the C-word (chokers) for the South Africans in a world stage, at least for a day in 2019. You wish you would have seen de Villiers doing the improbable, one more time, at Lord’s, on a typical English summer evening. On the mind and math of it, the team had one more shot at it. And now the chance has gone and he has silently walked away into the sunset like a true champion. People may question the timing of it and some may say he was selfish with his decision. But that carries little significance to me.

Because, sports, indeed like life, thrive on these uncertainties and the imperfect finish to a perfect career will only serve as a tale for romanticists to discuss for generations to come. And, despite not being able to hold aloft that damned cup, there has been no question about his place among the pantheon of all-time sporting greats.

The AB de Villiers story is an endearing tale of a driven individual and how he ruled the arena with an iron fist each time he steps onto the field of play. It is also a captivating tale because, in a journey that saw him being one of the greatest ever in the sport, AB the human being has always remained grounded, untouched by fame and adulation. And now as he has left the stage, it's time to acknowledge how big a success story it is for the game of cricket that AB has graced it.

Thanks Abraham Benjamin de Villiers. Thanks for the memories.

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