Ken Borland

South African captains have generally been through the mill at World Cups – the deep pain of Graeme Smith in 2011, Shaun Pollock’s stunned expression in 2003, Hansie Cronje’s tears at Edgbaston in 1999 are all still vivid memories – so it was wonderful to see AB de Villiers enjoy a glorious day at the Sydney Cricket Ground yesterday.

Just five weeks after lashing 149 off 44 balls against the West Indies at the Wanderers – his 31-ball century being the fastest in ODI history – De Villiers made 162 not out off 66 deliveries to destroy the same side at another great cathedral of the game.

In the process, the South African captain reached 150 off a record 64 balls, and De Villiers now holds the records for the fastest 50, century and 150 in ODI history, sealing his status as one of the greatest batsmen to have ever played limited-overs cricket.

The Sydney Cricket Ground rose as one for De Villiers after one of the most scintillating displays of batting ever seen on the global stage, and the likeable 31-year-old now has a beautiful World Cup memory to cherish, replacing the nasty scenes of 2011 when New Zealand substitute Kyle Mills was shouting in his face after a mix up with Faf du Plessis accelerated a South African collapse.

In terms of batting excellence, De Villiers’ innings ticked all the boxes.

He came in under pressure with South Africa having lost both set batsmen, Hashim Amla and Du Plessis, for solid half-centuries in the space of three deliveries from Chris Gayle. De Villiers weathered that storm and was able to rotate the strike for the impressive Rilee Rossouw to capitalise on his own brisk start.

It was only once Rossouw had been dismissed – for a momentum-changing 61 off 39 balls – that De Villiers really took the game away from the West Indies.

There was tremendous skill, innovation, some brute force, wonderful placement and brilliant thinking in De Villiers’ innings. Probably the most impressive feature of his batting is the amount of time he has, even against the quick bowlers, to get any delivery away to the area he has pre-identified as a scoring region.

To say that De Villiers has a tremendous eye for the ball is a bit like saying Imran Tahir (South Africa’s best bowler in the tournament) likes to acknowledge taking a wicket with some sort of celebration; combine that with quick feet, lovely wrists, superb timing and placement, plus tactical nous, and bowling to AB becomes a nightmare for even the best bowlers.

For me, there are probably two more things I’d like to see AB de Villiers do.

One is obviously play the match-winning innings in the World Cup final.

For the other, I’m going to dig up the legend of Barry Richards, arguably the greatest South African batsman ever.

The destructive power of Graeme Pollock, the prolific elegance of Jacques Kallis and the silky skills of Hashim Amla all feature in that debate, but for sheer brilliance in being able to fashion any stroke for any ball, Richards and De Villiers probably come out tops.

In the days of Richards, there was no international cricket for South Africans and the club game was of a very high standard, with provincial players in action most of the time. The legend goes that Richards, bored of the humdrum challenges of plundering hundreds, sometimes used to make it more interesting by only using the side of the bat. And the pitches were generally quite juicy in Natal club cricket.

On one famous occasion at the Collegians Club in Pietermaritzburg, Richards used the side of the bat for an over bowled with the new ball by Pat Trimborn, who played four Tests for South Africa!

Given the extraordinary brilliance of De Villiers, perhaps he should take on the bowlers with only the side of the bat just to even the contest a bit!

I have seen many weird, wonderful and not so wonderful things at the Harlequins bar in the Sun City main hotel and this was one of them – the German Interlausen Boogie with Left Arm Dominant Dance Club whirling and whirring around as the cocktail bar singer enjoyed her best audience ever and thanked her lucky stars no drunk men were trying to pick her up.

What was initially a captivating sight soon turned into a repetitive affair though as the dozen dancers all just did the same move,  over and over again, in identical fashion.

It reminded me that what makes sport special is the variety – the many different ways there are to be successful and the many different techniques that are employed.

Sun City is of course hosting the Nedbank Golf Challenge at the moment; golf being a game that revolves around myriad statistics and in which technique is absolutely key. Being a centimetre offline with your swing can result in disaster.

And yet there are all sorts of different swings out there. Jim Furyk, a two-time winner at Gary Player Country Club, is famous for his unorthodox swing but has enjoyed consistent success at the highest level for 15 years.

Danie van Tonder is having his unusual swing – which is more like a brutal punch at the ball than anything flowing and graceful – scrutinised on global television for the first time but, as fellow South African Tim Clark said, it works.

“He can obviously play. That’s the beauty of golf, you don’t have to have a cookie-cutter swing, and I’ve always admired those who go out and do it their own way,” said Clark, who has made a highly successful career for himself in the United States through sheer determination as much as talent.

Cricketer Phillip Hughes, so movingly laid to rest this week, chased his dream all the way to the top with an unorthodox technique that certainly frustrated South African bowlers. As recently as July 29 he smashed a brilliant 202 from 151 balls to lead Australia A to a massive win over South Africa A in a one-day game in Darwin.

It’s those that bring something different to sport that give such pleasure.

But there is one part of sport that I am desperate to see more uniformity in and that is in the refereeing of rugby Tests.

The governors of the game have to act urgently because I am convinced the winner of next year’s Rugby World Cup will be decided by a refereeing decision, given that almost every Test this year has been marred by some controversy over officiating or gross inconsistencies.

The yellow-carding of Springbok wing Cornal Hendricks for chasing an up-and-under last weekend against Wales was sickening. The number of times this year that players have jumped into each other contesting a high ball would need a proper census to count; there were even similar incidents in the same game that referee John Lacey was happy to let go.

Sure, intemperate efforts to compete in the air need to be policed but Lacey’s decision was ridiculous and I hope just an example of sheer incompetence.

But it would be reckless in the extreme for World Rugby to naively ignore the possibility that their game is infected by darker elements.

Match-fixers have afflicted cricket, who have at least taken steps to deal with the problem, but rugby doesn’t seem to think their game could possibly also be affected. Or they don’t care.

But like an asp striking at the breast, officiating controversies do far more damage to the image of the game than most of the things the administrators seem concerned about.

I never met Senzo Meyiwa or dealt with him, but by all accounts he was a wonderful human being and obviously a very talented footballer. A person being cut down before their prime, especially in such violent, totally senseless circumstances, is always a great tragedy.

But this crime had a whole extra layer of circumstances surrounding it, in the form of Meyiwa, married with a child, being murdered at his girlfriend’s house, with whom he has another child.

While I unreservedly mourn the death of Senzo, a thought occurred to me while I considered the tawdry situation – imagine if this had happened to one of our other national captains. Imagine if Jean de Villiers or Hashim Amla, both married, were actively pursuing an adulterous relationship and had children outside of marriage. What would the reaction be?

Top-class sport is all about discipline and many coaches will tell you that a player who is ill-disciplined off the field will struggle to be disciplined on it.

However much of a hero Meyiwa was on the football field, it is yet another moral failure of our country to not recognise that this was a person who broke his marriage vows, humiliated his wife and tore apart his family.

Whether or not Senzo planned to marry Kelly Khumalo, either his son by her or his daughter with wife Mandisa Mkhize were going to grow up without the regular influence of a father in their lives. There are numerous studies that point to the negative influence an absentee father has on children’s education, future relationships and even their ability to function properly in society. I would wager that the thugs that conspired to take Meyiwa’s life are, ironically, from fatherless families themselves.

And before people point to culture and say it was acceptable for Meyiwa to have his bit on the side, may I point out that many black commentators I have read are terribly disappointed by his behaviour.

If we as humans use “culture” as an excuse to propagate destructive behaviour then we are never going to progress. Such evils as slavery and Apartheid were considered culturally acceptable as well, and the oppression of women is still practised in many cultures around the world.

There seems to be a double standard at play here. If it had been revealed during Oscar Pistorius’s court case that he had been cheating on girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, the public would probably have clamoured for him to get capital punishment!

Not all top-class sportsmen are saints and I’m sure if we had all the information about our national heroes we would be shocked, but perhaps Bafana Bafana can take a leaf out of cricket’s book where the ProteaFire campaign is as much about how Amla’s world number one team performs on the field as about how they behave off it.