Q. Name an animal that can turn its head 360 degrees for vision?
A. Owl
Q. Name a cricketer who cannot do that but still hit runs all over the ground?
A. No prizes for guessing, the answer is obviously AB de Villiers. And he proves it again today mauling West Indies.
There are hitters, there are sloggers, there are finishers and then there is AB de Villiers. It is his amazing capability to come up with different shots for every possible delivery which is even harder to imagine and in turn, haunting the bowlers for eternity.
Think of this. Holder bowls to de Villiers on middle length after he saw his back foot moving outside off, but alas, he is against a genius who smashes it behind the square leg. Here is another one. Holder bowls a full toss outside off and what does de Villiers do? He smashes it over the square leg with breathtaking power landing for another six.
For many batsmen, the scoop is the option to break free. Many of them bend their knees hoping in desperation for the ball to hit the soft spot of the bat so that it clears the boundary. And what does de Villiers do here? He makes it look so normal as if he was going for the cover drive.
Reverse sweep is one shot that requires complete control over the body and also total focus. But de Villiers does it with such ease as if he could slow downtime to hit the ball whenever he wanted. He truly is the king of unorthodox shots.
Jason Holder looked quite amazing in his first spell today, totally on point. He had the figures of 5–2–9–1, and then things took a turn when he started his second spell. The figures read 8–2–40–1. It’s ain’t too bad, right? No. Wait. His final figures were 10–2–104–1. Now that’s something. de Villiers scored 30 runs in the last over off Holder and 34 off his penultimate over!
He doesn’t feel the need to guard his wickets while he is playing and that makes him invincible. It is his amazing capability to combine extraordinary skill, superb execution, and pinpoint planning in his head that enables him to become what he is now. How can one attempt to control de Villiers when his range is 360 degrees!
On this day, only de Villiers has the power to destroy any bowler like this cracking shot on all parts of the ground.
ABD has now the fastest 50, 100, 150 in ODI Cricket.
Grand Salute to the guy. Time to give him the title “Superman of Cricket!”
