The ODI between the Proteas and the West Indies on Sunday 18 January was dedicated to breast cancer awareness and AB de Villiers put on grand show for the occasion.
West Indies captain Jason Holder would have heard that The Wanderers has a history of being good ground to chase a total down on, so when he won the toss he immediately put the Proteas in to bat – a decision which backfired spectacularly.
Protea opening batsman Rilee Roussouw had reason to be a bit nervous at the start of the innings as he has recorded 5 ducks in his ten international innings thus far. He dispelled any doubts over his ability by scoring 128 runs off 115 balls. He shared a South African record partnership of 247 runs with Test captain Hashim Amla, who also recorded his highest ODI score of 153 not out off 142 balls. These figures are particularly pleasing to the eye, but what the cricketing public witnessed next was possibly the best ODI innings of all time.
Proteas ODI captain AB de Villiers strode to the crease, probably a little bit annoyed with himself after throwing away a hundred in the first ODI in Durban. On his arrival at the crease, he told Hashim Amla that he would take a look for an over or two and then go on the attack. He slapped the first ball he faced for four and simply did not stop after that. He got to his 50 off 16 balls, breaking Sanath Jayasurya’s world record for the fastest ODI fifty, which has stood for 16 years.
De Villiers kept blasting away at the bewildered Windies bowlers and brought up his century off 31 balls – breaking the world record for the fastest ODI century set by New Zealand’s Corey Anderson who achieved his feat off 36 balls in 2014. In the process he also equaled Rohit Sharma’s record of 16 sixes in a single ODI innings. He was eventually caught on the cover boundary on 149 off only 44 balls, just a single run short of breaking Shane Watson’s record for the fastest 150 in ODI history, scored against Bangladesh off a rather more pedestrian 80 balls. This innings was a brutal batting assault of power hitting and genius stroke play, the likes of which we many not see in our lifetime again and words cannot do justice to. Quite simply, AB de Villiers is playing a different game to everyone else right now. Here are the highlights of his record breaking innings.
This game was also the first in ODI history that the first three batsman all scored centuries and the final score of 439/2 was also the Protea’s highest score in an ODI innings. The only score higher than this was Sri Lanka’s 443/9 against the Netherlands. A hint to any prospective bowler who gets the opportunity to bowl at the Wanderers stadium. Have a chat to Head Groundsman Chris Scott. If he says you are playing on strip number one you might want to fake a back strain. This is the same pitch that was used for the famous “438”game against Australia and is certainly not bowler friendly.
The Windies tried to put up a fight but it needed one of world cricket’s other great entertainers, Chris Gayle, to get a very big and rapid hundred, but once he was dismissed for 19 the Windies simply did not have the firepower to chase the target down. To be fair, their score of 291\7 would have won them more games than it would have lost, just not on the Proteas record breaking day.
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