De Villiers keeping 'solves lot of problems' - du Plessis

Can he? Can't he? Will he? Won't he? Should he? Shouldn't he? Does he want to? Doesn't he want to? Does it even matter what he wants?

AB de Villiers and his wicketkeeping gloves are back for another season. A quick refresher: De Villiers will keep wickets and open the batting for the T20 side from now until next year's World T20. He will not captain the T20 side. He will not keep wickets or open the batting in the one-day side, which he will also captain. He will not keep wickets, captain nor open the batting in the Test side. Got it?

About five years back, de Villiers stoically refused to keep because he wanted to be the best batsmen in the world. He then heroically accepted the gloves in shorter formats when Mark Boucher was dropped, and later also in Tests when Boucher's career ended. De Villiers also took on the captaincy in the shorter formats, which eventually became too much to handle when coupled with the responsibility of keeping.

De Villiers can do anything on a sports field, and there was a time when it was thought he could do everything as well. But those things are different. Anything can be done in isolation, everything has to be done all at once and sometimes, even some who can do anything, cannot do everything. Both de Villiers and South Africa learnt that the hard way.

A chronic back issue means de Villiers cannot both keep and be the pivot of the batting line-up in all formats, so there has had to be a compromise. Besides captaining, de Villiers will do it all in the format which gives South Africa their next opportunity to win a major trophy, something they will do anything to get.

"Deciding to put AB at the top was a conscious change we made leading up to the World T20," Faf du Plessis, who will captain in the T20s explained. That makes sense because, as du Plessis said, "the best time to bat is in those first couple of overs and you want to give your most explosive, best players a crack at getting in early and scoring runs."

The decision to have de Villiers keep was unexpected, and came as a result of Quinton de Kock being dropped. It also required some convincing. "That's the benefit of being best friends with someone - you can tweak things a little more," du Plessis joked. "To be honest, keeping wicket is something he does't really want to do; it's not on his priority list and it does affect him on his back."

But having de Villiers keep "solves a lot of problems for us," du Plessis said, because it means he can slot in to replace de Kock without South Africa changing the rest of the line-up. They can have de Villiers as the new de Kock with Amla at the top, and have made room for an extra player in the middle order. That's the way they are going to go about this T20 series and probably, at the World T20.

"That's something we will stick with even though the conditions may say otherwise. In Durban, with a bit more grass, your cricket brain tells you you should keep AB back because the ball will move around a little bit and there is potential for him getting out early but it's not about this, its about the bigger picture. He needs to get used to batting in that new role," du Plessis said. "We've got Hash back to slot in at the top there and I think that's a good combination.; they complement each other really well."

Where does that leave the other opening-batsman-gloveman South Africa picked for these matches, Morne van Wyk?

"Morne is our back-up keeper," du Plessis said. Despite scoring a century the last time he played a T20 international and being a like-for-like replacement for de Kock, van Wyk will likely carry drinks in T20 cricket because it appears South Africa do not see him as a World T20 candidate. "It's important to give AB some opportunity at the top. He is a fantastic player but he is also human and he wants to get practice in the new role. If Morne does not keep it makes it quite tough for him to make the team at the moment."

Van Wyk may get a chance to play in de Kock's place in the ODIs next week, when de Villiers will return to the middle order and as captain.

"The only format we will see AB keeping in is T20 cricket - one-day cricket is just too much for him from a captaincy point of view," du Plessis said. "He likes being next to the bowlers and controlling the game. If he was keeping, he is too far away.

"Also, his body is quite important, we need AB to play for as long as possible so in saying that, Test cricket and one-day cricket, it's going to be tough for him to keep. It would be great if he could but to get longevity out of AB its important that he doesn't. It's nice because we've got possibilities there for the T20s and it will only be something until the World Cup, not after that."

After all that, you may think du Plessis' main concern for his best friend would be how he will keep himself from getting confused about what he can, can't, should or shouldn't want to do but all du Plessis wishes is that de Villiers gets some good sleep.

"He has got his baby with him on tour so now it's just about making sure he gets some sleep - that's quite important for us."