An historic innings: AB de Villiers goes down in cricket folklore for record-breaking knock

After another record-breaking innings, Dileep Premachandran explains why AB de Villiers' display against the West Indies will go down in cricket history.

AB de Villiers on his way to a record-breaking 150. His match-winning innings got South Africa back on track after their defeat to India. Matt King / Getty Images

Given what was to unfold over the next 47 balls, it seems almost incongruous that AB de Villiers dealt only in singles, twos and dot balls off the first 18 balls he faced.

Then Jerome Taylor bowled a slower one outside off stump that was drilled back straight with immense power.

In another game, you might have identified that as the trigger moment.

In this one, it was probably something that happened while De Villiers was at the non-striker’s end.

He was on 36 at the time, from 26 balls, but it was Rilee Rossouw who had been the more flamboyant player as South Africa rebuilt following the loss of Hashim Amla and Faf du Plessis in two deliveries.

Rossouw had raced to 45 when Taylor tempted him with a rising delivery outside off stump.

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He may as well have thrown carrion to a piranha.

Rossouw pounced with such enthusiasm that he was off the ground when he connected with an upper cut that sailed over backward point for six.

De Villiers spoke of having walked out feeling “really flat”, before being revived by his partner’s energy and intensity.

When Suleiman Benn came on to bowl the next over, De Villiers produced a six-four-four sequence that took him to his half-century in 30 balls.

The six was an exquisite stroke, picking up a delivery aimed at his pads and depositing it over the rope at deep cover. Thereafter, it was an exhibition.

The West Indies did not test him enough with short balls, but it was hard to be too critical of their efforts given De Villiers’s incredible ability to hit the ball all around the park.

The 17 fours he hit were nearly spaced out in an arc between third man and fine leg, and a couple of the sixes he hit more than matched the audacity of the Rossouw shot.

Almost 36 years ago, Viv Richards – batting on 132 – faced the final ball of the first innings of the 1979 World Cup final in England.

Even before Mike Hendrick bowled it, he had started moving across to the off side.

Hendrick targeted the stumps, but Richards, who had already set himself, flicked it on the full over midwicket for six.

All these years later, it is up there with Clive Lloyd’s hook for six off Dennis Lillee in the inaugural final in England in 1975 and MS Dhoni’s game-winning hit at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium in the 2011 final as the most iconic stroke played in the competition’s history.

On Friday, De Villiers played a stroke of similar impudence, albeit against a bowler a fair bit quicker than Hendrick.

Andre Russell bowled a full length ball on off stump, but long before it had reached the batsman, De Villiers had decided that he would deal with it in unorthodox fashion.

Shuffling across until his feet were outside off stump, he scooped it over long leg for six.

Had it been off a medium pacer, it would have been an eye-catching stroke.

Against a genuinely quick bowler, it bordered on sheer genius.

In a column written before the tournament began, Richards had said: “The more I watch him [De Villiers], the more it feels like I am watching myself bat.”

Later in the match, Imran Tahir took five for 45 as South Africa romped to a 257-run win.

Tahir was asked later how he might bowl to his captain.

His reply, whether in jest or not, was telling.

“I’d probably bowl him a beamer or two – two beamers, and I’m out,” he said, prompting peals of laughter.

In the West Indian dressing room, it was unlikely anyone was laughing.

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