De Villiers says he’s run out of gas and feels that it’s time to move on

Loved throughout the world for his swashbuckling batting and superb fielding, Telford Vice pays tribute to a player who’s left an indelible mark on the game

● A father, mother and two small boys were gathered at a pizza and pasta joint in Port Elizabeth early on the evening of Christmas Day last year.

The older kid wore a shower of straight brown hair and beheld his pizza like a king his kingdom. His brother babbled blissfully.

Mom smiled the happy smile all moms smile when they have made it, almost, through another day with their sanity more or less intact.

Dad looked weary around the eyes and sat a touch hunched. He seemed burdened and older than the 34 he would turn in less than two months. He offered a sans-serif smile.

It was an ordinary scene that plays out around the world every day. Except that the father in this familywas AB de Villiers trying to do what even he couldn’t do: be ordinary.

“I am a person first and then a cricketer,” De Villiers said in a 2016 Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations player survey. That’s as close to heresy as we get in a society in which you’re only as good as your latest social media post, but no less true for that.

De Villiers proved his point on Wednesday by walking away from however many more millions and however many more runs, and all the fame.

“I’ve had my turn and to be honest I’m tired,” he said. “It’s not about earning more somewhere else. It’s about running out of gas and feeling that it’s time to move on.”

His decision was greeted as if a loved one had died when all that happened was that a great cricketer’s career had been laid to rest.

De Villiers’ genius in the white-ball formats has overshadowed the fact that in test cricket he was merely excellent.

Of all the 2 912 men who have batted in tests, only 43 average 50 or more — 1.48% — and just 15 of them have played at least 100 games in the format. That puts De Villiers in the top 0.52% of test batsmen.

But greatness doesn’t respect the banality of numbers. You only had to see, once, De Villiers apparently levitate as he awaited a delivery he would put over the third man boundary with an outrageous flick, or splay his knees, one of them on the ground, to de- posit a ball over the backward square leg fence, or take an uncatchable catch, to know that he was great in the only sense of the word that should exist.

That he could think of doing these things was arresting. That he could do them should have got him arrested.

None of which made him a good captain. He won more games than he lost, but that happened because of the team he led — which of course included his exemplary self — and despite his ham-handed leadership.

Graeme Smith stood tall, alone and unmistakably at the helm of his ship. Faf du Plessis is always two steps ahead of what anyone else is thinking, and wearing a sly smile to prove it.

De Villiers was invariably frazzled and surrounded at every turn by sub-committees of teammates lending him better ideas. Little wonder he was too often in trouble with the over-rate police.

The circumstances of a particular loss suffered under his leadership more than three years ago now were a kick in the balls that must still hurt and could easily have hastened Wednesday’s decision.

For the suits to have the arrogant idiocy to meddle in the selection of the XI for the 2015 World Cup semifinal at Eden Park was a crime against De Villiers and his team that has, shamefully, gone unpunished.

A tendency to obfuscate and contradict his own admissions on chronic niggles, some more serious than others, exposed De Villiers as someone who said what he thought others wanted to hear.

That made De Villiers a fine example of what’s right and wrong with modern sport. Let stars star. Let leaders lead. Let talkers talk. Don’t get those wires crossed, and bugger the media, social and otherwise.

Anyway. All done. All dusted. All over. Bet you can’t wait for Christmas, né, AB?