Abraham de Villiers
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 South Africa (SA) |
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| Batting style | Right-hand bat | |
| Bowling type | Right-arm medium | |
| Tests | ODIs | |
| Matches | 18 | 19 |
| Runs scored | 1370 | 402 |
| Batting average | 42.81 | 21.15 |
| 100s/50s | 3/8 | -/1 |
| Top score | 178 | 68 |
| Balls bowled | 174 | - |
| Wickets | 2 | - |
| Bowling average | 38.50 | - |
| 5 wickets in innings | - | - |
| 10 wickets in match | - | N/A |
| Best bowling | 2/49 | - |
| Catches/stumpings | 23/1 | 7/- |
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As of 27 April 2006 |
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Abraham Benjamin de Villiers (b. 17 February 1984) in Pretoria. More commonly known by his initials AB, he plays cricket for South Africa and the Northern Titans.
He is a right-handed batsman, who, in a very short space of time, has accumulated many runs and scored three centuries in Tests; including centuries against England, the West Indies and Zimbabwe. He is a talented, acrobatic wicket-keeper who could be in line to replace Mark Boucher (South Africa's current wicket-keeper) in a few years time. Although not recognized for his bowling, he has Test best bowling figures of 2/49. His ODI career is (as of yet) not as promising as his performances in Tests.
He is used in a similar fashion to the legendary Jonty Rhodes in ODIs. That is, although he opens the batting in Tests, he bats lower down the order (middle-order, ie. 4 or 5) in ODIs. The recent ODI tour to India (late 2005) highlighted an "inability" to open the batting in this version of the game. He scored his second ODI 50 24 October 2006 batting 5th in a partnership with Mark Boucher, playing the Sri Lankan side.
AB is a casualty of politics in South African sport. Sports in South Africa have an "enforced quota system" that ensures that there are a minimum of two "players of colour" in the cricket (rugby, etc) team. Selection based on talent and merit often have to take a backseat to skin colour, and AB has "suffered" this on a few occasions.
In his younger days he played for Carrickfergus Cricket Club as a professional.
Stats and info courtesy of Cricinfo.com.
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