03/06/2026
[AB De Villiers: The Greatest Turnaround Ever Seen In Cricket]
People often talk about AB de Villiers that in the early stages of his career he was as awesome as he was in the later part of his international career. This statement is, to some extent, true, but it holds good only for the longer formats of the game, especially Test cricket.
AB de Villiers in Test cricket was genuinely a phenomenon. The then highest individual score holder for South Africa in Tests, a three-consecutive-centuries scorer in ODIs — a record which by [2012] only [4] cricketers had ever achieved — and much more than that. In fact, by the end of [2013], he was averaging [51.7] in Test cricket with [18] centuries and [34] fifties.
In ODI cricket, he was a record master, scoring every [1000]-run increment from [3000] onwards in record innings. He was then the fastest to [4000], [5000], and [6000] runs in ODI cricket. By the end of [2013], he had scored [6331] runs in [153] innings in ODIs with an average of [50], accumulating [16] centuries and [36] fifties along the way. His strike rate was [93]. There was one unique record he was still holding, which he kept even until his retirement from the very format. It was related to the centuries he scored — none of them came at a strike rate of less than [100]. It means that whenever he scored big, he scored it quickly.
One format where everyone thinks he was quite a force to reckon with from the start of his career is T20 cricket. He was never the same AB de Villiers we know today. In his first [50] innings, he could only manage to score some [878] runs at a strike rate of [121] and an average of [21]. By the standards of T20 cricket at the time, it was a pretty average performance, especially when we look at batters like Kumar Sangakkara, who was never famous for pinch-hitting, yet had far better numbers in terms of runs, average, and strike rate in the same number of innings.
Sangakkara, in his first [50] innings, scored [1325] runs at a similar strike rate to AB de Villiers and with a far better average of [32]. AB, in the later part of his career, had a great surge as a pinch-hitter. In his next [25] innings, by the end of his career in the format, he scored close to [800] runs in [500] balls at a strike rate of [160] and an average of [44]. He could only manage to hit [25] sixes in his first [50] innings, and in the next [25] innings, he hit [35] more and ended his career with [60] sixes.
Even in T20 cricket, by [2013], he had [2708] runs in [121] innings at an average of [29] and a strike rate of [131], which was still acceptable, but the kind of aura and reputation ABD had was still below par. Anyways, by the end of his career, he had [9424] runs, meaning he went on to score [6716] runs at an average of [41] and a strike rate of [160]. He could only manage to score [1] century in the first [8] years of his career in T20 cricket, but by the time he retired, he had [3] more centuries to his name.
This can be submitted as the greatest turnaround by any sort of batter in any sort of format, to be remembered as the greatest in the format.
AB de Villiers for you.
![[AB De Villiers: The Greatest Turnaround Ever Seen In Cricket] People often talk about AB de Villiers that in the early ...](https://img3.gyms1.com/528/371/878366575283715.jpg)
