AB Must Return

Sportsmen and cricketers, in particular, tend to only have a handful of years to apply their craft and to earn an income from their exceptional abilities.

Ab de Villiers made a financial choice to opt for the global T20 circuit at the expense of his international Test and ODI career.

De Villiers has not played any 4-day or 50 over cricket on the South African domestic scene for a while now and I agree he should not be eligible to play Test and ODI cricket until he has done so.

Having said that, if we make the criteria that you need to be involved at a domestic level to be eligible for international selection, then Ab de Villiers has in fact met those requirements by playing in the Mzanzi Super League in 2018 and 2019.

I’m against the idea of him walking into the T20 World Cup playing XI (especially given that his T20 stats aren’t great by any stretch of the imagination) but I have no problem with him earning it.

He is a world-class cricketer and I expect to see him feature in the 5 T20’s against the West Indies later this year, where he will be given the opportunity to find form and earn himself a position just like everyone else who is fighting for only 15 slots.

AB Must Not Return

Before I begin I would like to categorically state that having AB de Villiers in any side is a luxury. What he brings reflects his T20 market value.

But, given the on/off relationship he has had with the Proteas since ‘that’ semi-final in 2015, it’s time to say goodbye. No one is bigger than the badge and AB shouldn’t have the right of choosing when to play international cricket when it suits him.

It’s a level that only a handful of cricketers on this planet get to play and just a mere pipe dream that the masses or the unlucky ones who just missed out on selection will never get to experience.

Here’s the real question, though, will AB actually make a difference? We haven’t won any World Cups with him. Would he have made a difference at the 2019 showpiece? I doubt it.

And funnily enough, his respective franchises that he represents in the IPL and Big Bash T20 leagues often end up in the basement of the standings.

Putting AB into the Proteas T20 set-up for the World Cup later this year sends the wrong message to all the mere mortals fighting for a place in that squad.

His return won’t paper over the glaring cracks that have been forming in South African cricket in recent times.