AB de Villiers
Overall: 9424 runs at 150.13 SR
The first time I saw AB de Villiers bat was in a Test match. The moment you saw the quick feet, quick hands - and the character, showing his presence in the middle - he looked every bit impressive. You thought there was something special there.
But AB the T20 batter redefined what batting looked like for the next generation.
Because he could play attritional cricket - he could leave deliveries, he could play for a draw - and he could also turn up at the Chinnaswamy and sweep a fast ball to MG Road.
I still remember the hit against Mohammed Shami at the Chinnaswamy when I was leading Kings XI Punjab. He was striking it well. Then he shifted across to off stump and Shami missed his yorker. And it was very high, almost a beamer. AB just flipped it across, and it flew out of the stadium. Those are shots that can only be played by people with quick hands. And the first thing you notice about AB is how quick his hands are.
He's played field hockey. A lot of people from that part of the world - Jonty Rhodes, AB - have very quick hands. And they have played some amount of hockey. It reflected in how AB reimagined batting in ways others couldn't. I'm not surprised he's the T20 batter of the century.
There was tremendous skill and immense resilience, but if you're not a problem solver in this game, you can't be excellent. And AB was an ace problem solver. He left no visible holes for you to exploit. Just the sheer range of shots he had, the sheer pyrotechnics he could exhibit on the cricket field… and to also go on to draw a Test match by dead-batting through a day in Adelaide. That's proper greatness for you. AB is a great because he could troubleshoot and solve problems through the thick and thin of his career.
I think there were pockets in his batting where he could be challenged by spin early on, but beyond that, he was very good against spin and pace in equal measure.
He would use his feet, he could sweep, he could reverse-sweep. Sometimes as a bowler when I've gone up against him, I used to wonder, why is he not choosing to do this on a certain day?
Because he could do pretty much anything. I would bowl certain deliveries and think, why has he not hit that? There were stages of his T20 career where he probably didn't execute the kind of demolition job he potentially could have. I think he didn't know how good he was at some stages. He was that good.
When I first came up against him in the IPL, I was still a spring chicken in the international arena. I used to prepare very well for AB, used to pick up small cues, because I knew I was up against a special talent. He was someone I looked up to, even when I was watching cricket and not playing it, and I didn't want to leave anything to chance when I came up against him. My duels with him are very deeply etched in my mind because of how much I admired him.
The 2014 T20 World Cup semi-final is one such memory. I got him caught at deep square leg; it was a very big boundary on that side in Mirpur and I had some footmarks to work with, so I devised that ploy. It was very tactical. And then one month later, in the IPL, he hit me for a six in Ranchi off the same ploy.
Over the years, I found that AB was one player you couldn't afford to do the same thing against and find success. You couldn't repeat dismissals again and again, because he would come out with another ploy.
In hindsight, it might seem like I've dismissed him quite a bit [five dismissals in 93 balls across T20s, costing 99 runs]. But he was daunting. If he chose violence on a certain day, you weren't going to stop him. So while the player in me would never accept any batter as intimidating, it's easy to see he was probably one of the most intimidating ones.
An incredibly special batter. I just wish he had some more world titles to boast of. But he's etched into the folklore of this game. And AB de Villiers going down on one knee sweeping Dale Steyn at the Chinnaswamy [in 2012] will be etched in my memory forever!
As told to Yash Jha
Stats are for the 2000-2025 period