A Cricketer With Values

The memoir goes beyond cricket and tells us how to play the game of life WITHOUT GREED OR MALICE.

- R.K.Raghavan.

I strongly believe this book is not my story. It is the story of what God has planned and realized through me.

— Abraham Benjamin de Villiers, in his autobiography (September 2016, Macmillan Publishing Company)

Reading AB pour out his thoughts in a landmark autobiography is an en-nobling experience. Avoiding flowery and complex language, which likes of him often use to impress their readers, he writes from deep down his heart with a passion and genuineness that are absent in many self-stories. A gentleman cricketer to the core with a humungous record of achievements — that is the envy of many cricketers around the world — AB has done great service towards at least partially restoring the credibility of a game that was rocked a few years ago by sordid tales of venality. AB does not directly refer to Cardinal Newman, one of the greatest minds of the 19th century, whose aphorisms are a guide to life even 200 years after he set them out. Newman famously said: “Courage does not consist in calculation, but in fighting against chances.” He further stated: “It is almost the definition of a gentleman to say that he is one who never inflicts pain.” No one in the game of cricket may be ever said to have exemplified what Newman expected from those who lived alongside him.