Ab de Villiers announced his retirement from all forms of cricket on Friday - which means cricketlovers won’t be able to see this once-in-a-generation champion player in any T20 franchise cricket from now on.
The 360-degrees player said that the flame no longer burns so brightly, which was illuminated by so many great knocks around the world.
A lot of players had talent but this was an exceptional player who had the temperament to back that special talent which made him such a legend in all forms of cricket. He was called a 360 degrees batsman as he could hit the ball all round the park against any bowler without any fuss or power. He made bowlers look silly when he was on song and every special innings he played for South Africa or in franchise Cricket, especially in Royal Challengers Bangalore colours, were out of the world.
Any player who has played above 100 Test matches has to be special and having an average of 50.66 in the highest form of cricket - scoring 8765 runs -speaks volumes of his temperament. To add to it, having played 228 ODIs with an astonishing average of 53.50 at a mindboggling strike rate of 101 showed he was so dangerous in the white ball format.
To top it up in the shortest and fastest format, ABD was a cut above the others. He has played 360 T20 matches, scoring 9424 runs with a strike rate of 150 coming in the middle of the innings, which showed how dangerous he was when he was at the crease.
We have had superheroes like Superman, Batman, Spiderman in comic strips but in cricket - there was only one superhero that was Abraham Benjamin de Villiers.
- Cricket enthusiast Anis Sajan is the Vice-Chairman of Danube Group
