Limited-overs cricket will see a lot more of AB de Villiers after South Africa’s T20 captain, Faf du Plessis, confirmed plans to deploy him higher up in the batting line-up.
“We are going to bring AB a little bit earlier. Whether it’s going to be opening or three, we are still talking about it but it’s definitely a higher role than he used to have,” du Plessis said.
De Villiers opened with Quinton de Kock in South Africa’s warm-up match on Friday, and with Hashim Amla being rested from the series, he may be used in that capacity again. With du Plessis moving down the order to provide stability in the middle, de Villiers could also replace him at No. 3.
The proposed de Villiers move comes after a chorus of criticism which followed last year’s World T20, when South Africa lost in the semi-final, failing to defend 173. Although South Africa seemed to have scored enough runs, both in that match and through the tournament – four of their five totals were above 150 – former players including Kepler Wessels and Daryll Cullinan believed they were not using de Villiers as effectively as they could.
At the time, South Africa’s coach Russell Domingo defended his tactic of holding de Villiers back. “AB has batted at No.3 a few times and has had limited success. It’s not the number he bats; it’s the situation of the game when he comes in,” Domingo said. And he was right.
De Villiers has batted at No.3 in 16 of his 57 T20Is, in 12 of those innings, he has not scored over 20 and only twice has managed to score a half-century. He has only opened once in a T20I, against Pakistan in March 2013, and was the top scorer with 36 off 22 balls, in a failed chase of 196. De Villiers performs best at No.4, where he has scored 584 runs – more than half of his total runs. He has also achieved his highest score of 79 not out from and averages 27.80 from this position, compared to 22.37 overall.
But, during this year’s IPL, de Villiers revealed that he “always wanted to bat in the top three.” He was used in that position for most of Royal Challengers Bangalore’s matches and finished the campaign as their highest run-scorer and fourth highest overall.
That may be one reason to use de Villiers higher. Or South Africa could simply be going back to a tactic they pondered when Domingo first took over in mid-2013. His first assignment was a limited-overs tour of Sri Lanka, where it was mooted that de Villiers would open the batting. He ended up batting in the middle order with South Africa using Henry Davids to open with de Kock, but with Davids no longer in the plans and a World T20 looming, using de Villiers may not be the worst idea.
South Africa have 12 matches before the tournament to experiment with their batting line-up, including two in Bangladesh, three in India and seven at home – against New Zealand (2), England (2) and Australia (3). Although it is not as many as they had before the 2015 World Cup, when they played more than double that, it may give du Plessis the time he needs to put a proper strategy in place. “From structure point of view it’s important that you play a lot of cricket in T20,” du Plessis said. “It’s nice from a captains point of view that the Twenty20 is more important this year because last year, the focus was more on ODI cricket.”
Of course, ODIs will still be in the back of South Africa’s mind and they could also be trialing de Villiers higher up in T20s with a view to moving him up the order in ODIs. There, de Villiers is most often stationed at No.4 as well, but with the new rule changes favouring bowlers, South Africa may want to get more of de Villiers in that format too.
