Since the World Cup poor Sri Lanka can do no right. Dilshan has shrivelled as captain and batsman and even his successor as skipper, Mahela Jayawardene, has lost much of the sparkle which made him one of the best all-round batsmen in the game. Maybe the wholesale changes in Sri Lanka cricket will help revitalise their fortunes but one man who possibly hastened the shake-up was a South African, and I don't mean new coach Graham Ford.
Abraham Benjamin de Villiers has certainly took a liking to the Sri Lankan bowlers in he past six weeks. In the three-Test series he scored 453 runs in four innings, followed by 329 in five ODIs. You could say that he had the benefit of home pitches but nevertheless AB was the one who scored the most runs, even if the last two brilliant innings in the 50-over matches were in a losing cause as Sri Lanka notched up a couple of consolation victories.
Still only 27, de Villiers has now aggregated more than 10,000 runs for South Africa in Tests and ODIs. Oddly for a player renowned for explosive hitting, he is not as strong in Twenty20 as many others but what makes him stand out is his ability to adapt his game to the circumstances. Yes, at Cape Town his 160 not out, supporting Jacques Kallis' double-century, came in only 205 balls but his career strike rate averages a more sedate run every two balls. In ODIs, however, his rate is 93, one of the best in the world. In the final fixture at Jo'burg he thumped an unbeaten 125 in 98 balls to set up what should have been a winning total, and very nearly was.
His recent successes have nudged his Test batting average close to 50. 41 out of his 71 Tests have been played in Africa yet his batting average there is barely 40, so it's not about home advantage. In addition to Sri Lanka, he has also enjoyed battering the West Indies, home and away, while his main struggles have occurred against, of all nations, Bangladesh, in a miserable series in 2008. In 2011-12 he has become an automatic choice at number five, having come along way since he opened the innings on his debut against England seven years ago.
His one-day record is pretty spectacular considering he struggled in his first umpteen matches. Fortunately selectors persevered, perhaps because his fielding and wicket-keeping gave South Africa extra options. Nearly 5000 runs in 124 games is a good record and his purple patch came in 2009-10 when he struck four hundreds in six innings against three different sides. England have been his undoing on the few occasions he has played them but that is a mere micro-blot on his CV so far.
My Man of the Moment but I'm sure that he'll have plenty more over the coming decade or so.
