De Villiers is one of the best in the world, while Gayle needs to prove himself against better bowling...
Friday 27 February 2015 13:48, UK
Following AB de Villiers record-fastest ODI hundred against the West Indies in January and Chris Gayle’s 215 against Zimbabwe on Tuesday, the World Cup clash between the two in Sydney on Friday is set to be explosive. Bob Willis says why…
Apart from maybe Brendon McCullum, AB De Villiers is the best one-day batsman in the world and probably is the best across all three formats – although McCullum is pushing him very hard.
He’s a quite outstanding player and it’s only a month ago that he set the world record for the fastest ODI hundred at The Wanderers in Johannesburg so I don’t think his two relatively modest scores so far at this World Cup signals a dip in form for him at all.
He and Hashim Amla are the quality players in that South Africa side and they’ve got other people who can smash the ball around them as well. But if Amla and De Villiers fire, they could post a score that would be way beyond the reach of even the like of Chris Gayle.
Gayle’s innings is the sort that can kick-start any player for a while. He has been hit and miss recently. He’s earned his corn around the world in the T20 format but in the 50-over game he’s been very sketchy indeed and I’m not ready yet to put him in the same bracket as De Villiers until he proves it against high-class, quality bowling.
Any player through the history of the game has had lulls in form and this was quite a long one for Gayle. But hopefully from the West Indies point of view and his own, he’s come out of that now and should press on now for the rest of the tournament.
I think he can expect South Africa’s bowling to be a little more testing than Zimbabwe’s but he has obviously got his eye in, got a score, and his confidence will be sky high.
He and De Villiers are similar players in terms of the shots they’re able to play but because of his batting position, Gayle’s more likely to take on the opposition from the word go.
That’s why Amla is as much a key man for South Africa because he too goes in first. De Villiers choses to go in after the openers and Du Plessis which wouldn’t be my choice, I’d get him in earlier than that.
But South Africa are still far stronger than the West Indies, particularly their bowling. They haven’t quite been as formidable as before the tournament – Zimbabwe got far more runs than expected against their attack – and Morne Morkel and Dale Steyn haven’t yet had the impact we expected.
It was a modest performance against Zimbabwe by their standards and they were well and truly trounced by India.
Shikhar Dhawan’s innings was particularly impressive and they didn’t know quite what to do. But they’ll address those issues and I can’t see them stuttering through the tournament very much longer.
Chris Gayle – along with Marlon Samuels – came off the other day against Zimbabwe and they played very well as a team against Pakistan but over recent times it has been a complete mismatch between the West Indies and South Africa.
I don’t think there’s a chance of an upset but then again at the start of the tournament you looked at the West Indies and thought they might not qualify for the quarter-finals but they’re in much better shape now.
That said, I would still make South Africa very hot favourites indeed.
Watch South Africa v West Indies on Sky Sports World Cup from 3am on Friday 27 February.
