School coach reveals secrets about AB de Villiers and Faf du Plessis

AB de Villiers and Faf du Plessis are the mainstays of the South African batting line-up. Both these batsmen strengthen the middle order and can take the game away from the opposition in no time. Their significance in the batting department was clearly visible in the first two Tests against India. They stood tall against the Indian bowlers under tough circumstances and bailed South Africa out whenever the clouds of trouble hovered around.

The early days

Both the dynamic batsmen hail from Pretoria. Interestingly, these two also studied in the same school. They shared a very strong bond ever since. The duo also shared the same room in a hostel during their days in the Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool from 1998 to 2002. Before becoming famous at international level, du Plessis and de Villiers were famous in school cricket as well. In fact, Faf was in awe of his good friend AB.

ABD pursued a degree in sports science and Faf’s parents convinced him to follow the same path. All was fine before de Villiers received his national call-up. Du Plessis had to wait for a while to get there. In an interview, he said that he wanted the national call-up very badly then.

However, that never affected the relationship between the two. When du Plessis got married to Imari Visser in 2015, de Villiers was his best man. When de Villiers 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. They share a great comradery between them.

Secrets about the ‘little devils’

They 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 an interview with CricketNext, Botes tried to recollect the moments shared between these two.

Here are some precious moments from their early days:

1) 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 on 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,” Botes stated.

2) AB was expelled from school

“A new trend had started where the kids would speak to one another on the 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,” he further mentioned.

3) When Faf came into the school team, he was a leg-spinner

This is the most interesting incident. Faf was a leggie to start with. Recalling the incident, Botes said: “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.”