The freakish delight that is AB de Villiers

Cricket is a game within a game. Two individuals trying to outwit each other, in the context of a team game. Or so we were told. And so we told others.

When AB de Villiers is batting, the game within a game part is somewhat moot. Mostly, de Villiers is playing de Villiers. Well, okay, de Villiers is playing the ball. The bowler seems irrelevant to the context, other than to supply de Villiers with a ball to be hit. The fielders seem similarly inconsequential, other than to fetch the ball from beyond the boundary. In the background, the crowd is swaying, swooning. And breaking into fits of laughter. De Villiers is playing like he is running a high fever. Everyone and everything is swinging in rich delirium.

Old-timers used to say this of another cricketing freak, the Indian legspinner Bhagwath Chandrasekhar, that he often didn't know what he was about to bowl. What chance, then, the poor batsmen, they chuckled. Often, it's as if de Villiers doesn't know what shot he is about to play. What chance, then, the bowlers and fielders? It's often stated that a batsman plays best when he simply reacts to the ball. The assumption is that the reaction is based on conditioning built up during practice. With de Villiers it all seems all so spontaneously conceived. If this is what the man does on the field, it makes you wonder what he does in the nets.

Bowlers when bowling to Viv Richards and Virender Sehwag often felt the fear of flogging. Richards' was muscular machismo, of the chewing gum and the swagger. Sehwag played with a twinkle in his eye, minimalist oriental spunk to Richards' exaggerated strut. Both were unconventional. One dared to take the ball from off and beyond, through midwicket, the other hit balls that you were trained to leave or play straight, through point and behind. But in hindsight and post-de Villiers, you realise that while they posed tough questions of bowlers, the questions were ultimately cricketing questions.

De Villiers poses questions of a more existential kind: Am I a bowler? Is this what I've been trained to tackle? Is he a batsman? Am I at the circus? The audience is in similar high trance. Is this man a gymnast? Is he a skateboarder? Some sleight-of-hand artist? Or, indeed just the neighbour's kid who has strolled onto your patch to have some fun? Half the time, he seems everything but a cricketer.

Line and length seem to matter little, as balls outside off are sent away through and over fine leg. The tiniest of widths outside off is steered through the slips to fine third man. All the while, he is contorting himself into shapes never seen before on a cricket field. The bowler is faltering, his cricketing reference points slip-sliding away, and this is roughly where panic starts to set in if you are the fielding captain. Meanwhile de Villiers is falling over, then on tiptoe, soon arcing back, and later furiously backpedalling. In between times, he is running you ragged. De Villiers is here, there and everywhere.

He is possibly the most gifted athlete to have ever graced a cricket field. It's almost as if playing so many sports has left him with too many options, bat in hand. It's like he wishes he didn't have to miss out on playing the others, and he's trying to borrow from them in equal measure while on a cricket field, to compensate. He is constantly trysting with planes, curves and angles, nooks and corners. It's as if the spirit of Richard Feynman got on a cricket pitch to teach you geometry and chanced upon Robin Williams on the way.

Who said cricket is a side-on game? De Villiers must be among the most front-on batsmen ever. Playing the cover drive like he does, it's a wonder he doesn't end up with a dislocated hip. Most things are front-on with him, unless it's the steer through the slips or the square cut. Bowlers these days are accused of not using the crease enough. No batsman I have seen uses the crease as much as de Villiers, and no one certainly, his hips.

ESPNcricinfo used to run a series on imagined battles between bowlers and batsmen across eras. For sheer unpredictability, you couldn't go beyond Chandrasekhar bowling to de Villiers. Eknath Solkar hovering at short leg, and Jonty Rhodes swooping in from point. I'd add Sunil Gavaskar at the non-striker's end just for stark contrast. Plus, he'd have a good laugh, remembering his old chum Kris Srikkanth.

We have seen serious fidgeters in our time. Srikkanth, Derek Randall, Steven Smith come to mind. De Villiers puts them all comfortably in the shade. He is blinking furiously as he walks in to bat. His face unshaven, eyes shot, sweat already seeming to drip down the sides of his helmet. Towel permanently jutting at the waist, he walks past his partner, alternating between toothy grin and grimace. Something, presumably in Afrikaans, slides its way through grin and grimace. And then he's down the pitch, poking at it, wiping sweat from his brow.

A hunch of the shoulders, eyes darting up and down the pitch in a last rehearsal of judging length, followed by a knee flex, and taut bat pick-up. The ball is nearly there. The eyes have lit up in a trice. A world of possibilities has opened up. Welcome to the wonderland of AB de Villiers. Sit back and enjoy the show.