After awkward adolescence, 'Baby AB' is all grown up and ready for the top

“I’m never happy or satisfied with my performance, I feel that’s dangerous.”

When a 21-year-old Dewald Brevis spoke about being grounded in achievement, he sounded similar to a 20-year-old AB de Villiers. In January 2005, a distraught de Villiers had “only himself to blame” for missing out on a maiden Test century against England, falling for 92 in the Centurion Test. "People say I'm just a youngster and it doesn't matter - I'll get another chance - but I would have liked my hundred.” Next innings, he got 109.

We’ve probably heard too many AB-DB comparisons already. Watch him bat, and you know why. The bat swing is just as clean and savage, the use of the crease nimble but well-defined. His no-look shots carry the oomph of a future superstar. He completes shots with finesse, often with frame-worthy follow-throughs.

Unlike de Villiers, who quickly became an international sensation, Brevis’ early appeal has been generated through a flurry of domestic T20 showings. The highlights have been brilliant. As a teen, he hit four sixes off a capped India spinner in his first IPL season. Just months later, he hit five sixes off six balls in the Caribbean Premier League. All of this had come after a record-breaking U19 World Cup.

Last year, though, when he said that he wanted to be the “best cricketer who has ever lived”, he was no longer generating headlines with his on-field deeds. He’d just had a quiet ‘A’ series against Sri Lanka. It had just been over a year since his T20I debut came and went, amounting to five runs across two matches. He had been released by Mumbai Indians for the next season of IPL, a tournament he “lives for”. A few months later, he’d go unsold at the IPL auction too.

He followed it with an underwhelming Cricket South Africa T20 Challenge, managing 39 runs in three innings, at a strike rate of 122.

Two years ago, at the same tournament, Brevis had rattled the world with a 57-ball blitzkrieg, worth 162 runs and including 13 sixes. “Watching a masterclass”, said Albie Morkel. “Dewald Brevis. No need to say more,” tweeted de Villiers. It was the fastest 150 in T20 history, and the highest score by any South African in the format. By then, he had already played the IPL, and was all set for the inaugural SA20.

These “next-big-thing” tags are easy to distribute, but can generate enormous, often unmatchable expectations. In this case, Brevis himself has set the bar very high for himself.

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In 2009, de Villiers made a similar statement, announcing he wanted to be the world’s best. It caused a lot of buzz back then, and by his own admission, “put quite a lot of pressure” on him.

However, the declaration actually pushed him harder towards meeting his goal.

“Without me knowing, it planted a seed in my subconscious,” de Villiers said. ”That’s really why I play this game. It just started driving me more and I worked hard on my game. Every opportunity I got, I made sure I made full use of it because of that statement I made.”

For Brevis to be compared to arguably South Africa’s greatest all-format batter so early would have been stifling for anyone else, but maybe not for “Baby AB”.

“I want to get into all the Proteas squads, to be an all-format player,” he said in the same interview.

In the time since, Brevis has turned things around. This year has been spectacular so far.

It began with the SA20. Batting at five, he cracked a 29-ball 57 in the first game – across the tournament, he played everywhere from No.3 to 7, finishing with a strike rate of 184, the sixth-most runs, and the most sixes in a title-clinching campaign.

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“I have been working really hard in the quiet times when no one really knows about it,” Brevis said after the tournament. “There are a few things that I’ve changed. I am all for hard work and putting in the graft, and that’s what I did.

“Last year was a bit of a rollercoaster. But it’s nice to start this year nicely and contribute for MI Cape Town to help them get the win.”

A part of the criticism towards Brevis is his perceived lack of consistency, and doubts whether he was pushed too early into the shortest format to develop into an all-format player.

In the CSA Provincial One-Day Challenge – a 50-over competition – he has reversed that theory. Batting between four and six, he finished as the second-highest run-getter, averaging 66 with a century and three fifties in seven innings, at a blistering strike rate of 156. Soon after, he also earned a Blast gig for Hampshire.

The ongoing CSA Four-Day Series has re-established Brevis’ all-format brilliance.

All set to play the final for Titans in the CSA Four-Day Series Division 1, he averages 54.70 from ten innings, two centuries and two fifties combined. What’s more, he’s got them at a strike rate of 89. During his 148 against the Dragons, Brevis came in with the Titans two down, but looked to attack from the get-go, essaying booming drives on both sides, and eventually going aerial, hitting five sixes.

Cricket South Africa seem to have had him in their radar all through. Not long after the A tour, and before his SA20 season, he was called into the Test squad as a cover for Temba Bavuma. In the T20I setup, Brevis has been pipped by Tristan Stubbs, and after the SA20, another teenage sensation – Lhuan-dre Pretorius – was garnering much of the applause.

Brevis did not find a mention in the just-announced CSA central contracts list, but the selectors are still definitely watching. Possibly, doubts around Heinrich Klaasen’s South Africa future might hasten his comeback. His first stint with South Africa was a short, forgettable one.

The next one is set be longer and grander.

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