AB’s relativity to Einstein

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE, Hamilton

PUTTING AB de Villiers and Albert Einstein into the same sentence would have taken some doing if SA’s World Cup captain had not made it easy yesterday.

Here’s Einstein: “The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.”

And here’s De Villiers: “It’s important to me to break things down a bit, slow it down a touch; make sure there’s enough time away from the game.

“Slow it down - make it feel like a whole year. Sometimes, if you don’t do it that way, those pressure situations and those big moments in games fly by.

“We want to slow things down. That’s the main message for this tournament.”

Behind De Villiers and his men lay years of plotting, planning and practising. Ahead of them lay the first of at least six, at most nine, reasons for all that plotting, planning and practising: their World Cup match against Zimbabwe at Seddon Park on Sunday.

They will play six pool matches. Then, probably, a quarter-final. Then, perhaps, a semi-final. Then, please, South Africans will pray, the final.

De Villiers has been shot in this movie twice before. In 2007, SA were blown away by Australia in the semis. In 2011, they blew themselves away in the quarters against New Zealand.

“I remember the first one going by really quickly,” De Villiers said. “Before I knew it we were in the semi-finals. It was almost as easy as that. I know World Cups are not as easy as that, but it happens really quickly and before you know it you are also out. As easy as it is, it’s also just as tough.”

As for choking, “That’s still very much part of our system. We’re going to have to win to take that away. We know that.”

For all his unpolished English yesterday, this was a far more believable De Villiers than the one who tries to say all the right things and talks himself into tangles of good intentions that lead to the exact opposite of what he was trying to say.

For instance, how much notice was he taking of the whirlwind that began swirling yesterday when New Zealand played Sri Lanka in the tournament’s opening match?

“To watch other games and follow other games tires me out,” De Villiers said. “I don’t really care about other games. I watched Sri Lanka and New Zealand for 10 overs and I feel tired sitting here now.”

There is more damn straight rock ’n roll in those few words than there could have been in however many takes De Villiers needed to record “Maak Jou Drome Waar”.

This is also evidence of his growing up. Imagine being a genius trapped in a regular Joe’s personality; someone for whom possibility leapfrogs probability and is mainlined as perfection. At least, it would do if the limits of being human did not keep getting in the way. That is no easy thing to comes to terms with, genius or not. But it seems De Villiers has done it, both as a player and a captain.

“It’s been a rocky road,” he said of his three years and 60 matches as SA’s one-day captain. “I remember being all over the place when I started off.

“It’s the same with my batting. Early on I had absolutely no idea; I don’t know how I survived for the first three to five years. But you get to know your own game and I’ve got to know my own captaincy game a lot better over the last while.

“I feel I’ve got more time. I make better decisions but I still get it wrong like any other player has done in the past and will do in the future.”

For SA bowling coach Allan Donald, who has seen more than his fair share of captains come and go, De Villiers gets it right more often than not.

“You listen to when a captain says his first words and he’s a little bit tentative and wondering how the team is going to accept him,” Donald said. “Now, he really is a very good leader. He’s very confident and he’s imposed himself on the team. He’s got the team.

“When a man stands up and says he’s going to lead from the front and gets a world record one-day score, that says a lot about him.”

Say it slowly, because everything has not happened at once for De Villiers and for SA: it’s time.