It’s still music and it’s beautiful: AB de Villiers on his partnership with Virat Kohli

The bond between AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli has been one of the most enjoyable aspects of being an RCB follower. Watching two of the all-time greats ply their trade for the team is nothing short of spectacular. Despite them having contrasting playing styles and varied strengths, they hold their own, and de Villiers described the AB-Virat symphony perfectly as, “The rhythm might not be the same, but it’s still music and it’s beautiful.”

AB de Villiers and Kohli are two contrasting players and yet equally explosive. De Villiers elaborated on what he thinks makes Virat effective. “We definitely have things in our batting and the way we approach the game that we would love to have for ourselves. He’s got things that I’d like and I think he feels the same about me. We are completely different players, we take on different bowlers. I personally like to attack a little bit earlier, I like to not show weakness earlier in my innings, so I’d be earlier with the trigger than him. But he’s so fluent, he can also with conventional shots, he pierces the ring very easily; he can get you a similar kind of strike rate early on,” said de Villiers.

If Virat is slightly more circumspect at the beginning of his innings, de Villiers takes the opposite approach. “I like to punch back, nice and early, show that I’m there; it’s all about presence, body language, and I want guys to early on feel that, ‘Hold on, he can’t bat for 5 overs. It’s going to be trouble if he bats for 5 or 10 overs’. So that’s where I think we’re different. But then, Virat again, I’d say is more reliable. He’s the guy that you’d want to bat early on for 15 overs, and I’d say I’m maybe better in a way where I can change the game quicker and have that injection that can possibly swing the flow of the game. So, together, we’re quite a nice combo,” he added.

Brought up on pacy tracks in South Africa, and facing fast bowlers whose first instinct is to bowl a bouncer, de Villiers’ game is well-versed in playing the short ball. In contrast, Virat has played more on slow and turning pitches in his formative years. De Villiers feels that playing together has given them the chance to learn from each other. “We chatted about it quite a bit and vice versa” said De Villiers speaking on what Virat has picked up from him on playing the short ball. “I’ve spoken to Virat about it, I mean extending the arms, you could see how Virat extends his arms with the short ball, so it can really get technical. It’s a difficult one for the mind to understand because the quicker the bowler is, the more you think that you need time and you’ve got to like pull in, but you actually got to go towards the ball and fetch it, so that’s the tough part to understand, and once you click that, the minute you try and extend your arms towards the ball, it becomes a lot more easy to control it, and I think that’s what Virat got right in the last six to seven years, really extending it, and you can see he really rolls his arms, just trying to keep it down, not giving a chance up in the air on the leg side, its’ vital. Once you’re in, and you’ve controlled a couple, then you can start looking to dominate, but really respecting the short one upfront, getting to understand the bounce, the pace of the wicket, once you’re on top of that, you can start toying with them.”

ABD, on the other hand, reckons he has learnt how to play the spinners better from Virat. “Playing spinners in the middle overs, I watched him for ages, batting in the nets, what he would do, where he would hit spinners, how he would rotate them, and I picked up a lot of things from him as well. And other stuff, looking at techniques. When I’ve had a big break, I love watching other players and what they do with their techniques, where their balance are etc. I like watching those kind of stuff, and I think Virat picked up on a few things, and we’ve had some very good discussions around cricket, ” said de Villiers.