Four days after playing in the IPL, AB de Villiers announces sudden retirement from international cricket.
Sa-chin! Sa-chin! That singsong chant that reverberated around the biggest stadia in India was retired along with Sachin Tendulkar, and nothing has replaced that. What did come close, however, was a 35,000-strong Chinnaswamy Stadium crowd yelling A-B-D! A-B-D! to welcome their most loved adopted son. Such was AB de Villiers’ impact in India.
As a modern batting great, de Villiers’ credentials can’t be questioned. South Africa’s fourth highest Test run scorer of all time, their second highest ODI run-getter and owner of the fastest ODI century, off only 31 balls, de Villiers gave cricket 360-degree batting, much in the way Johan Cryuff is known for gifting the world Total Football.
The timing of de Villiers’s announcement will raise eyebrows, especially given how little he has played for South Africa in the recent past. In the last year, de Villiers has featured in eight Tests, 12 ODIs and five Twenty20 Internationals. But his departure has been brewing for some time now.
There was a distinct feeling that de Villiers was only made captain of the South African Test team in 2016 in order to ensure that he was not lost to T20 franchise competitions around the world. As it happened he was barely able to embrace that role.
Today, when de Villiers says, “I am tired”, and gives international cricket away at 34 there will be enough sceptics who suggest he is set to spend the next year or two as a globetrotting T20 batsman, building himself a nice little nest egg. For the moment, de Villiers says this not on the cards.
Critically, de Villiers admitted that his longterm aim of winning a World Cup was something he had to give up on and that putting this ahead of overall availability to his team was not an option. “It would not be right for me to pick and choose where, when and in what format I play for the Proteas. For me, in the green and gold, it must be everything or nothing,” said de Villiers.
The announcement might be a moment for fans to sit back and savour the best of de Villiers, calling up YouTube videos of his best innings, but it has taken Cricket South Africa by surprise. While the South African team is in good hands with du Plessis providing vision and leadership, the hole that de Villiers the batsman leaves will not be filled in a hurry.
When you close your eyes and think of de Villiers, you might see a man on one knee, sweeping a fast bowler out of ground, a fielder who puts spiderman in the shade jumping in the air to pluck a catch or a little man in whites cover-driving with the kind of poise and balance given only to the very best in the world.
Think also though, of the time de Villiers spent nearly six hours at the crease on a dying Ferozeshah Kotla pitch, consuming 297 balls for 43 as South Africa looked to force a draw, almost staging a sit-in in protest to the kind of pitches they encountered on their 2015 tour of India. Think also of the captain who admitted that he got it completely wrong in 2015, in telling Dale Steyn to bowl length to fellow South African Grant Elliott in Auckland. de Villiers wept at the post-match press conference as his team called chokers once more and New Zealand entered their first World Cup final on the back of a penultimate ball six.
As de Villiers moves on, with the world asking why rather than why not, it’s worth putting cynicism aside, willingly suspending disbelief, at least temporarily, and trusting the man when he says: “It’s not about earning more somewhere else, it’s about running out of gas and feeling that it is the right time to move on. Everything comes to an end.” Cricket’s superman has run out of gas, but not before he took the world on the ride of a lifetime with his performances on the field.