Finisher de Villiers deserves more freedom

Batless, AB de Villiers is restless, always moving around looking for work. Bat in hand, his body and head remain still, till he unleashes those vaunted strokes that leave you speechless.

There was one of those at the Royal Challengers Bangalore nets on Friday evening. Sandeep Warrier, the Kerala fast bowler, delivered a yorker on de Villiers' middle stump. It was a line de Villiers was expecting. Without moving his feet, he just cocked his wrists outwards to sort of chop the ball so hard that it sneaked under the side netting and nearly hit the foot of one of his team-mates had he not jumped in the nick of time. It was brutal. Such was its ferocity that even Allan Donald, Royal Challengers' bowling coach, waved both hands in up-and-down motion to ask de Villiers to calm down.

De Villiers had been batting for nearly half an hour. He pulled with vigour. He punched with power. He used those rubbery-wrists to manoeuvre the ball both sides of the wicket from angles many would not dare to even imagine. If Virat Kohli derives confidence form the way he is hitting the ball, de Villiers gets it from the range of strokes he can play. By grasping opposition plans and sending bowlers to all corners.

Ask Morne Morkel, de Villiers' South Africa team-mate, and his Kolkata Knight Riders rival on Saturday. "You can't really plan against AB de Villiers," Morkel says. Mainly because de Villiers has every shot in the book and more for which a bowler cannot plan. He can only think on his feet and hope it works out.

"One thing about AB is, he reads the game quite well. As soon as you do all your field placements, he will sum it up and he will work a gameplan around that. We have all seen him over the last couple of years; all his reverse-sweeps and sweeps that he has played. It is hard to bowl to a guy who can not only hit a short ball for six, but also if you just miss a yorker."

So far in the IPL de Villiers has been one of the best finishers. In the last six overs of an innings, he has scored 968 runs at an average of 40.33 and a strike-rate of 195. Only three batsmen - MS Dhoni, Rohit Sharma and Kieron Pollard - have scored more runs in the last six, but all at lower averages and strike-rates. Among batsmen who have scored at least 500 runs in the last six, his strike-rate is the best.

Yet despite his exuberant strokeplay and finishing skills de Villiers remains somewhat of an unfulfilled promise. You often come out with a feeling that he could have done more. He averages 68.38 at a strike-rate of 148 in wins, but only 19.67 at 128 in losses. One thing that has gone against de Villiers has been that he has been given less time to express himself. He has mostly arrived in the final five to six overs when the job is specifically to attack.

The absence of good batting depth, specifically quality Indian domestic batsmen, has always been an issue with Royal Challengers. They have this time checked that deficiency by hiring Dinesh Karthik. The wicketkeeper-batsman and de Villiers will form part of the middle order and can always play the role of the stabiliser in case the top order falters or can bolster the platform set by the likes of Chris Gayle and Kohli. What de Villiers needs is more time at the wicket. And his team this time is willing to offer him that.

"I personally feel that this season you will probably see myself, Chris and AB expressing ourselves more than ever," Kohli said. "We have good depth in our batting and we have got good resources this time, so we can start to bat freely. In the last two-three years we batted under more pressure as compared to other teams because we were top heavy. Some of the other teams were batting till No. 8 so the top guys could go and express themselves. But we had to mix caution and aggression.

"This time, I won't say that we will blindly go and swing the bat but you will probably see the guys more relaxed in expressing themselves more and be confident in what they want to execute and not have as many second thoughts as probably we would have had in the last couple of seasons."

Second thoughts are not part of de Villiers' game. Ask the bowlers.