AB de Villiers; Record Breaker in ODIs, Damp Squib in T20s?

Everyone loves AB de Villiers.

Everybody loves watching him score centuries at will. Everybody roots for him when he scores the world’s fastest ODI hundred or even the fastest ODI 150. That love also extends to the World Cup when he single-handedly scores 482 in innings.

However, fast forward to a few months later and this is when we draw the line. This is when you become public enemy number one– when you, AB de Villiers, visit India as an opponent and try to steal some sheen off MS Dhoni’s ‘proving a point’ series.

But, we did some digging around of our own and it turns out that this record breaker has a kryptonite(among cricket formats)... and yes, it is T20 cricket. (That’s just the stats talking, not us)

So here’s us proving just why AB de Villiers is not a threat to the home team in the upcoming 3 match T20 series.

1. Superman be as he might with the bat, short-cut cricket is apparently the least favourite of formats for AB. While he averages 52 in tests and 53 in ODIs, in his 61 T20 innings, de Villiers averages a very uncharacteristic – even mediocre –22.38.

2. Against India – and this gets better – in seven T20 innings, AB has scored over 40 in just one match. In fact, there is another statistic that sounds even better – he’s scored below 20 in 5 outings of those 7 matches against our team.

3. While the Proteas’ ODI skipper has never played a T20 international in India, his batting average of 19.71 against India has been earned in three matches that he actually played on his home soil.

4. There is in fact more. AB might be the highest and fastest scorer of centuries but in this format – he’s managed to cross 50 just 5 times. His highest score in the format stands at 79 not out that he scored against Scotland back in June 2009.

So well, take heart India, we haven’t lost this one already... and we have Virat Kohli... and Dhoni is back!

So chin up!

P.S. Might have forgotten to mention this one stat though, in the IPL this

But I may have forgotten to mention that in the IPL this season, AB de Villiers scored 513 in 14 innings.