Although fans had expected it to happen sooner, Dewald Brevis has earned a maiden national call-up to the South African Men’s squad for the upcoming white-ball series against Australia 16 months after playing his first Indian Premier League match for Mumbai Indians last year.
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It was primarily because of his style of batting that a prodigy in Brevis used to get compared to former South Africa captain AB de Villiers. The comparisons were too such an extreme extent that some fans had even started to believe that Brevis is related to de Villiers which is certainly not the case.
Frankly speaking, one can’t entirely blame the fans as similarities between the two players would convince anyone to believe that they are related. Apart from their attacking style of batting, de Villiers and Brevis are alumni of the same school and wear Jersey No. 17.
‘Baby AB de Villiers’ Dewald Brevis Earns Maiden South Africa Call-up
Man of the Series in the ICC U-19 Cricket World Cup 2022 on the back of emerging as the highest run-scorer, Brevis’ national selection has made fans wait a lot. That said, it might not be very long before he dons the South African jersey at the highest level now.
With ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 scheduled to be played less than a month after the culmination of three T20Is and five ODIs between South Africa and Australia, multiple first-choice ODI players have been rested for the shortest format.
As a result, Brevis is one of the eight changes made to the T20I squad. Similarly, he is one of the four additions made to a what is now a 19-member ODI squad.
“It’s nice to be able to give him [Dewald Brevis] an opportunity. He is one of our up-and-coming youngsters. We want to just broaden our base a little bit and this Australia series is an opportunity to give him a run. I won’t be calling him Baby AB. We will leave AB to be AB. He is a fairly grounded young guy. It’s just about creating an environment to express himself in,” South Africa head coach Rob Walter said in a statement.
South Africa T20I Squad – Aiden Markram (c), Temba Bavuma, Matthew Breetzke, Dewald Brevis, Gerald Coetzee, Donovan Ferreira, Bjorn Fortuin, Reeza Hendricks, Marco Jansen, Sisanda Magala, Keshav Maharaj, Lungi Ngidi, Tabraiz Shamsi, Tristan Stubbs, Lizaad Williams and Rassie van der Dussen.
South Africa ODI Squad – Temba Bavuma (c), Dewald Brevis, Gerald Coetzee, Quinton de Kock, Bjorn Fortuin, Reeza Hendricks, Marco Jansen, Heinrich Klaasen, Sisanda Magala, Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram, David Miller, Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortje, Tabraiz Shamsi, Wayne Parnell, Kagiso Rabada, Tristan Stubbs and Rassie van der Dussen.
Dewald Brevis Domestic Record
Having always been surrounded by an unnecessary weight of expectations, Brevis not playing a single IPL 2023 match at MI had disappointed quite a lot of fans earlier this year.
Speaking of his maiden season in the cash-rich league, the right-handed batter had scored 161 runs at an average and strike rate of 23 and 142.48 respectively. For the unversed, former Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Virat Kohli is his lone IPL wicket thus far. The two were spotted joking around the same in a post-match chat as well.
All in all, the 20-year old player has been selected more on reputation than on domestic record. While 1,055 runs at a strike rate of 141.80 across 41 T20 innings is praiseworthy, 247 runs at an average of 35.28 across eight List A innings seems too early for an ODI call-up. That being said, it is to be noted that Brevis had allured a lot of eyeballs on the back of a 35-ball maiden T20 century last year.
