AB de Villiers

Lore & Background

When Sunrisers Hyderabad signed AB de Villiers ahead of the 2013 season, the franchise was still finding its identity. The South African arrived not as a captain or a brand ambassador but as a batsman who made the ball look weightless. From his very first over at Uppal, the crowd noticed something different: AB didn't just hit the ball, he seemed to negotiate with it, bending the trajectory into sixes that defied the geometry of the ground. The 'AB Shot'—a full-forehand pull that sent the ball sailing over long-on at a speed and angle that made fielders flinch—became the stadium's unofficial anthem, a sound the Hyderabad crowd learned to anticipate and celebrate.

By 2015, AB had become the IPL's most dangerous 10-to-20-over player. His 48-ball century against Mumbai Indians at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium remains the defining SRH innings of that era: 132 runs, a mix of straight drives, back-foot pulls, and that forehand six that seemed to come from a different planet. The dressing room, already electric, went silent for the final three balls, then erupted. It was the kind of innings that made a franchise feel like a destination rather than a stopover.

The 2016 season sealed the legacy. SRH, a team that had been mocked in 2013 as a 'new money' project, lifted the IPL trophy with AB at the heart of the batting order. He wasn't the captain, wasn't always the highest scorer in the tournament, but he was the gravitational centre—the player around whom the bowling plans, the field settings, the entire tactical architecture of the opposition revolved. When the trophy was lifted at the Wankhede, AB stood in the middle of the orange-and-black sea, bat in hand, and for a moment the stadium belonged to one man and his impossible forehand.

In Their Own Story

The floodlights at Uppal hummed their low electrical drone. Over 18, Mumbai's pacer had just bowled a yorker that AB brushed off the edge of his bat for a single. He walked back, tapped the bat on the ground, and turned to look at the long-on fielder. The fielder had shifted two yards inward. AB smiled. The next ball was slightly fuller, a touch outside off-stump. AB's back foot crept forward, the bat swung through the horizontal plane, and the willow connected with the seam at an angle that should have produced a pull for four. Instead, the ball left the face of the bat at 110 kilometres per hour, arcing over the long-on fielder's outstretched hands, over the boundary rope, and into the upper tier where a child in an orange jersey caught it and screamed. The stadium detonated. AB didn't look up. He was already walking back, bat tapping, eyes on the next delivery. The long-on fielder walked off the field, helmet in hand, and muttered something to his captain that the broadcast couldn't quite catch. In the commentary box, a voice simply said, 'And that is the AB Shot. There is no other word for it.'

Reader's Guide

AB de Villiers, middle-order batsman, Sunrisers Hyderabad, 2013 to 2017. Five seasons, and if you weren't at Uppal for at least one of his innings, you missed the point of the whole franchise. He wasn't the captain, wasn't the one giving the big team-talk, but the moment he walked out to bat the noise changed key. The crowd went from rowdy to reverent. You could feel the shift.

The moment that made him a Sunriser icon? 2015, Mumbai Indians, 48 balls. Fourty-eight. The man hit 132 off 48 balls and the last three were the quietest, most lethal singles you've ever seen. The stadium went silent. Not quiet—silent. Like everyone was waiting to see if the scoreboard was broken. Then the final ball, a soft push to mid-wicket, and the roof came off. I was in the lower tier. The guy next to me, a complete stranger, grabbed my arm and said, 'Did you see that?' I said, 'I saw all of it.' He said, 'No, the last three.' And he was right. The last three were the best part.

And the AB Shot. You don't explain the AB Shot. You just point at the sky where the ball went and say, 'That's the one.' The long-on fielder in 2016, I think, never fully recovered. You could see it in his eyes. He'd watch AB walk to the crease and his jaw would tighten. That's the legacy: he made the best fielders in the world look like they were trying to solve a maths problem in real time. AB didn't just play cricket at Uppal. He made the whole stadium believe, for 20 overs, that physics was optional.

Did You Know?

• AB de Villiers' 48-ball century in the 2015 IPL is one of the fastest hundreds in the tournament's history and was scored at SRH's home ground in Hyderabad.
• The 'AB Shot'—a full-forehand pull six over long-on—became so associated with him that opposition teams would routinely shift their long-on fielder inward specifically to counter it, a tactical adjustment that itself bec
• AB was not the captain of Sunrisers Hyderabad during their 2016 IPL title win; he operated as the middle-order anchor around which the batting order was built, a role that let him bat freely in the 10-to-20-over window.
• During his five seasons with SRH (2013–2017), AB was widely regarded as the most consistent run-scorer in the IPL during that window, regularly anchoring innings in the powerplay and middle overs.