Abraham Benjamin de Villiers was a right-handed batsman who also kept wickets initially, amassing 20,014 runs across all formats of the game. Ab De Villiers was a flamboyant batsman who earned many sobriquets — 'superman and Mr.360. Recently the South African giant called time on his international career, here's a glimpse of how de Villiers justified every word used to describe his Flamboyant.
106 off 186 balls - Chasing in style
Early in his career, during the South Africa tour of Australia, he played a crucial match-winning knock by remaining unbeaten on 106 of 186 balls to get South Africa over the line. He made an impact by helping South Africa chase the target of 414 runs in a Test at Perth in 2008.
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33 runs off 220 balls - Test saving 33 of 200 balls
Everyone thinks Ab de villiers can hit the bowl aerial route only or play innings at higher strike rates. But he could switch the game according to the need of the hour. During the test at Adelaide against Australia in 2012, Australia set a massive target of 430 to the proteas but the proteas managed to save the match on the fifth day thanks to the amazing knock of Ab de villiers. ABD played out 220 balls, not a single boundary, in 246 minutes and scored only 33 runs.
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149 off 44 balls - Fastest 100 of 31 balls
On January 18, 2015, De villiers broke Corey Anderson's record of the fastest 100( off 36 balls). Batting against the West Indies at Wanderers, Johannesburg, he reached the three-figure mark in just 31 balls by hitting 16 sixes and nine fours. De Villiers was dismissed on 149 off 44 balls. The Proteas set the target of 440 runs and won the game by 148 runs.
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162* off 66 balls - World cup classic
After hammering the fastest ton in January Ab was once again playing against the windies. He thrashed the Caribbean bowlers again in a month, this time in a world cup group fixture in Sydney. Mr. 360 scored 162* off 66 balls. The innings comprised 17 fours and 8 sixes out of which 4 sixes were hit in the last over. It helped the proteas to register the target of 409 on the board. West Indies were all out for 151.
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79 off 47 balls - IPL Classic
This inning was one of the best innings played by ABD, it was the first qualifier match of the playoffs of IPL 2016, Gujrat lions batting first were all out for 158, the target for the Rcb was 159. During the chase, all the top-order batsmen except Ab failed to score runs. There was a lot of pressure on ABD. He played calmly and slowly started to build the innings with Stuart Binny later he also got out after that he started playing his natural game and also got support from Iqbal Abdulla from the other end who scored a match-winning knock of 33 runs. AB remained not out on 79 off 47 balls which conceded 5 fours and 5 sixes.
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