Abraham Benjamin de Villiers, commonly known as AB (born 17 February 1984), is a South African international cricketer, who plays for Titans in South African domestic cricket and Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League. He has been rated as the number one batsman in Tests and ODIs on several occasions.[1][2] Often regarded as one of the best batsmen of his generation and also regarded as one of the greatest of all time,[3] De Villiers holds many batting records, including the world's fastest ODI 50, 100 and 150, the fastest Test century by a South African and the fastest T20I 50 by a South African. AB de Villiers is also among one of the marquee players in T20 Global League.
AB de Villiers
AB de Villiers 2.jpg
De Villiers training with South Africa in 2009.
Personal information
Full name Abraham Benjamin de Villiers
Born 17 February 1984 (age 33)
Warmbad, Transvaal Province, South Africa
Nickname ABD, Mr.360
Height 1.78 m (5 ft 10 in)
Batting Right-handed
Bowling Right-arm medium
Role Batsman, wicket-keeper
International information
National side
South Africa (2004–present)
Test debut (cap 298) 17 December 2004 v England
Last Test 26 December 2017 v Zimbabwe
ODI debut (cap 78) 2 February 2005 v England
Last ODI 22 October 2017 v Bangladesh
ODI shirt no. 17
Last T20I 22 October 2017 v Bangladesh
T20I shirt no. 17
Domestic team information
Years Team
2003–present Northerns
2004–present Titans (squad no. 17)
2008–2010 Delhi Daredevils
2011–present Royal Challengers Bangalore
2016 Barbados Tridents
Career statistics
Competition Test ODI T20I FC
Matches 106 225 76 132
Runs scored 8074 9515 1603 9961
Batting average 50.46 54.06 25.85 49.80
100s/50s 21/39 25/53 0/10 24/53
Top score 278* 176 79* 278*
Balls bowled 204 192 0 234
Wickets 2 7 2
Bowling average 52.00 28.85 0 69.00
5 wickets in innings 0 0 – 0
10 wickets in match 0 n/a – n/a
Best bowling 2/49 2/15 2/49
Catches/stumpings 197/5 173/5 63/7 248/6
Source: Cricinfo, 23 October 2017
He began his international career as a wicketkeeper-batsman (returning to the role for a few years in mid-career), but has played most often solely as a batsman. He has batted at various positions in the batting order but predominantly in the middle-order. Noted as one of the most innovative batsmen in the modern game, De Villiers is noted for many unorthodox shots behind the wicket-keeper and slips, which earned him the nickname Mr. 360. He made his international debut in a Test match against England in 2004 and first played an ODI in early 2005. His debut in Twenty20 International cricket came in 2006. As of 2016, he has passed 8,000 runs in both Test and ODI cricket and has a batting average of over fifty in both forms of the game.
De Villiers captained South Africa in all formats, but since his injuries, he stepped down from Test captaincy and continued in limited over formats. However, with defeats in the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy and England series, he stepped down from limited over captaincy as well.[4]