Credit: BCCI/IPL
There are career that reach the full country mile, attain dizzying heights in all they had to do and then there are some that begin to shine, are about to peak, and just when it seems that better days are about to arrive, they fall off the radar, only to finally recover back again. Such is the life and journey of Dewald Brevis of South Africa.
He is all of 22 years of age, having just enjoyed his twenty third birthday not even a full quarter of a year ago. But in that tiny fragment of time as an active cricketer, he rode a whirlwind rolle-coaster ride, if one must put it that way.
In such time, he drew comparisons with his legendary countryman, AB de Villiers, fired 500 plus runs in the Under-19 World Cup's 2022 edition, top scoring in the competition, thus reaching peak popularity (back then) as arguably the finest world youth batter, even broke into the checkered IPL tournament, found a place with giants, Mumbai Indians, got lost, went out of notice for quite some time and then, here he is again after a stellar return to the league with Chennai Super Kings.
South Africa select Dewald Brevis for Test series vs Zimbabwe
The latest cricketing news reports confirmed that the man popularly described as "Baby AB" is now making his inroads into the Test set up for his national cricket team. Yes, that is perhaps everybit as inspiring a piece of news as it is positive for a young man that deserves to go places in his wonderful cricketing career.
Breaking into a fantastic tournament like the IPL is one thing, and probably, as big a challenge as it is an opportunity to excel, which is why somewhere, it could possibly have heightened the anxiety of Dewald Brevis, who scored 455 runs, and that's all, from 16 contests. There was no sign of him in the las two seasons of the checkered tournament.
But now, just ahead of the big clash called the WTC finals, in comes a piece of news that would spur Dewald Brevis. He's just recently been selected for the Test contests against Zimbabwe.
And it's also a great piece of development for his usually ebullient, always competitive South Africa, who are all set to meet the biggies of world cricket, in the form of Australia. And while the youngster will watch his team closely as they lock horns with Australia, the Zimbabwe contests, undoubtedly, will be the time for Brevis to excel with the bat.
For someone who doesn't take all that long to get going and scoring runs, which he often does in the form of boundaries, it will be brilliant to anticipate what the quick-scoring right hander born in Johannesburg bring to the Test fold. What do you reckon?
Brevis feels his time at international level is now
By self admission, Brevis is raring to get going, the yearning to contribute to South Africa's cause is very much there. But how will the noted talent peform, is the big question.
Having said that, what must be remembered by fans about Dewald Brevis, who struck two international centuries in this previous or last Under-19 World Cup, is that he won't like to begin his Test journey the way he commenced his T20I career for the Proteas.
He was barely able to score. Surely, he played just two games, as on date, but looked a touch out of shade. This time around, the occasion is big and so is the expectation to deliver.
Time for "Baby AB" to bat like his own confident self and for the world to not judge him by the enormous yardstick that is De Villiers' name.
What do you reckon?
