AB de Villiers: 96 Test matches without missing any test for South Africa since debut

AB de Villiers plays 96 Tests for SA without a miss

AB de Villiers has played 96 Tests in his career, not missing a single one since his debut. Bharath Seervi looks on the world record emulated by AB de Villiers and other similar streaks.

AB de Villiers made his Test debut on December 17, 2004. He completed 10 years of his Test career when South Africa took on West Indies in the Test match at Cape Town on December 17, 2014. In the process South Africa played 96 Test matches and AB de Villiers has appeared in all of them. He has been run-machine of late, and dropping him is out of the question for the South Africa. What is more, he has not had a major injury, which has led to the unbroken. The next Protean on the list is Graeme Smith (89).

De Villiers equalled Adam Gilchrist’s record of playing most Tests without missing a match since debut. Gilchrist made his debut on November 5, 1999 and played all 96 matches for Australia till January 24, 2008. Do note that if de Villiers misses a single Test, the record for playing most Tests since debut without missing a single Test will go back to Gilchrist.

Another man who is closing on to Gilchrist’s record is Brendon McCullum, who is currently on 90. among Australians, Gilchrist is followed by Michael Hussey (79).

Most Tests without missing a match for the team (50 or more matches)

The only two other players who played more than 50 test matches without missing any match for their team are John R Reid (New Zealand) and Tony Greig (England). Both appeared in 58 tests.

Most Tests without missing any Test since debut (50 or more matches)

• Dravid played 93 Tests for India and one test for World XI in his period.
• Alistair Campbell and Andy Flower both made their debut in Zimbabwe’s first ever test match in October 1992 and played in first 56 and 52 test matches for Zimbabwe respectively.  Interestingly, their career’s last Tests was also the same.
• Frank Woolley missed 46 Tests after having played the first 52 Tests since his debut — the most in this category. Greg Chappell (33) and Rod Marsh (25) follow him.
• Kapil Dev missed only test match in his career of 131 Tests. He played 66 Tests since debut before being dropped for ‘playing a loose shot’; he played 65 Tests on the trot again India. Others to have played a high number of matches missing only one Test are Allan Border and Alastair Cook.
• Kapil, Mark Boucher and Ian Healy are the only players to have two streaks of playing 50 or more tests consecutively for their teams.
• Greg Chappell, after playing 51 consecutive Tests for Australia since his debut in 1977, missed the next 24 till December 1979 due to his World Series Cricket commitments. On his return, he scored 74 and 124 against West Indies at Brisbane.
• Cook was dropped after his first two Tests despite scoring 60 and 104 not out on debut. On his return, he scored 89.

AB de Villiers has scored 7,488 runs at average of 51.72 with 20 hundreds and 36 half-centuries in his streak of 96 tests. Let us see who scored most number of runs for a team since debut without missing a Test.

5,000 or more Test runs consecutive without missing a Test

Rahul Dravid aggregated 8,003 runs in his first 94 Tests before being dropped. Sachin Tendulkar averaged 57.18 and scored 25 centuries in his first 84 Tests before ending his sequence.

The record of playing most consecutive Tests (during any part of career) for a team is 153 by Border. He is followed by Mark Waugh and Cook  with 107 unbroken tests each. De Villiers, Cook and McCullum all have chance of getting to second spot, but crossing Border’s border is tough!

(Bharath Seervi is a cricket statistician who is obsessed with digging numbers, facts and records related to the game. An active member of Society of Cricket Statisticians of India, he blogs at www.cricketseervistats.blogspot.com. He can be followed on Twitter at www.twitter.com/SeerviBharath and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SeerviCricket)