Published: Jan 20, 2018, 02:55 PM (IST)
Edited: Jan 20, 2018, 02:54 PM (IST)
Faf du Plessis and AB de Villiers share a strong bond since school. The duo have shared the same room in an hostel during their Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool days from 1998 to 2002. Before becoming famous at international level, du Plessis and de Villiers were famous in school cricket as well.
From school to national call-up and more…
They started playing for school at the age of 15 and were the best batsmen in school cricket. In fact du Plessis was in awe of his good friend. AB had secured a degree in sports science following which du Plessis’ parents had persuaded him to follow the same path as well. All was fine between the two until de Villiers received the national call-up first. Du Plessis had to wait for his opportunity to come up.
Du Plessis in an interview to ProteaCricket had mentioned, “It was a bit of an issue for me, for sure. I wanted it just as badly – too badly, maybe.”
However, that never affected the relation between the two. When du Plessis got married to Imari Visser in 2015, de Villiers was his best man. When de Villiers had recorded “Maak Jou Drome Waar” (Make Your Dreams Come True) with singer-songwriter Ampie du Preez in 2010, du Plessis featured in the video. Even today, the duo venture out for bike rides during their off days.
On field, du Plessis continues to follow de Villiers’ path even today. After de Villiers resigned as the captain of South Africa, du Plessis took over the mantle. However, du Plessis and de Villiers were complete brats in school.
As their sports teacher, Deon Botes recollects, du Plessis and de Villiers never shied away from playing pranks on their friends or breaking rules or being expelled from school on disciplinarian grounds. In a chat with CricketNext, Botes recited those very moments shared of two best friends – AB de Villiers and Faf du Plessis:
“Du Plessis was just as serious about the game as he was a rule-breaker”
“One fine day, Faf comes up to me and says that he cannot come for training because his kit bag was in his room and he couldn’t find the key. Being the naughty boy that he was, I was sure he didn’t feel like training. So I told him that he had to come for training and I didn’t care how. So, as expected, I see Faf right there with the rest of the boys. After training, I walk up to him and ask him how he got the keys to which he said he didn’t. So, I enquired about the kit bag and he said he broke in through the window. I was like but Faf you cannot do that and he is like, ‘But sir, you only said I had to be at the ground at any cost.’ Now what can you say to this? It shows that he was just as serious about the game as he was a rule-breaker.”
“AB had to be expelled”
“A new trend had started where the kids would speak to one another on radio. So now, AB was trying to talk to one of the students in the girl’s school down the road and as luck would have it, one of the parents was walking down from that place at the same time and the matter was immediately brought up and AB had to be expelled for this.”
“When Faf came into the school team, he was a leg-spinner”
“When Faf came into the school team, he was a leg-spinner who also batted. We really thought we would see him bowl more often, but as he rose up the ranks, batting became a priority. As for AB, he was a wicket-keeper who batted at number 8 to start with. It was much later that he started batting up the order.”
“AB thinks I liked Faf more”
“Also, AB thinks I liked Faf more, but that wasn’t the case. I love both of them. What AB doesn’t realise is that whenever I would need a player to save a game, I would call for Faf because AB with his flamboyant batting would give me a heart-attack.”
