Fanie de Villiers stated he cherished his time as a global cricketer.
| Photo Credit: P.Ok. Ajith Kumar
Fanie de Villiers has bowled to a few of the world’s best batters of all time – together with Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara. Who earned the most respect from him?
“Mohammed Azharuddin,” de Villers informed The Hindu in an interview on an overcast morning at the SuperSport Park, throughout the second day of the first Test between South Africa and India.
“He was a wristy, stylish batter, but there were others too; I respected him because he could frustrate a bowler.”
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The former South African fast elaborated: “The most respect that you get for a player is the one that doesn’t give you a chance to make plans against him. With that wristy flick, he could take a single and go to the other end; he was the best at it. With him, you can’t say, I’m going to tie him down here for two or three balls and try variations.”
de Villiers, who had a high-quality profession for South Africa regardless of making his worldwide debut solely at 29, additionally has quite a lot of respect for a teammate of Azharuddin’s – Manoj Prabhakar.
Developing off-cutters
“Manoj Prabhakar helped me develop my off-cutters,” he stated. “We used to chat and he told me as bowlers we should do something different. He said he was warming up with spinners and felt we could try a sort of slow spin ball.
“And we decided to try it at the nets and felt the variation would work. That was how it started: slow balls from a full run-up with quick-arm action. Then I got Tendulkar out. Prabhakar was also successful.”
de Villiers, who took 85 wickets from 18 Tests and 95 wickets from 83 ODIs, believes India now has a gaggle of pacers which might be higher than those that got here earlier than them, in the type of Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and Mohammed Siraj.
IPL Factor
“I think the IPL is a big reason for the growth of India’s fast bowling,” he stated. “They could rub shoulders with the best fast bowlers from around the world.”
Looking again at his profession, he stated he was comfortable that he might play worldwide cricket although he might have missed six or seven years of that due to the apartheid coverage in South Africa.
“That some of our men played in County cricket in England helped us; they shared their experience with us youngsters,” he stated. “And we had good infrastructure and academies.”
He cherishes his match-winning effort in opposition to Australia in the Sydney Test – solely his second – in 1993-94. He took six for 43 to provide South Africa an unlikely five-run victory.
He additionally fondly remembers visiting Mother Teresa in Kolkata. “The two women I admired most were Mother Teresa and Princess Diana,” he stated. “And they died within a week of each other.”
