AB's Argument May Find Resonance In Indian Team

It is headline grabbing when a player of the stature of AB de Villiers terms his time as an international cricketer ‘unbearable’  in terms of pressure...

- Sreelata S. Yellamrazu

Even as South Africa are trying to come to terms with their stunning submission in the Emerald Isles, AB de Villiers’ comments throw some insight on perhaps what could be ailing some in the Indian dressing room on the distant shores of England.

It is headline grabbing when a player of the stature of AB de Villiers terms his time as an international cricketer ‘unbearable’ in terms of pressure. It is widely considered that only cricketers above a certain cut in terms of skill, adaptability and temperament make it to the highest level of the sport and that only the very best survive as long as de Villiers did, beginning his international career in 2004 and announcing his retirement from international cricket in the wake of the Indian Premier League (IPL) this year.

On the face of it, it is shocking to hear de Villiers talking about the pressure of performing at the highest level being almost insurmountable, this despite the fact that the supremely adaptive batsman is one of the most versatile batsmen in world cricket with a combined century score of forty-seven hundreds across Test cricket and one day internationals with more than 18,000 runs in the two formats.