Brevis makes statement of intent with devastating century as he made the most of his time after being dropped.
‘I’m here now’ – Brevis makes a statement as the ‘original Dewald’.
After his record-breaking exploits in the second Twenty20 International against Australia in Darwin, Dewald Brevis’ huge hitting has no secret—unless you believe him when he says that it’s a divine one.
Brevis became the youngest South African centurion in the format with a score of 125*, the highest by a South African in T20Is. Additionally, he displayed one of the best down-field stroke plays. In what his captain Aiden Markram said the post-match broadcast was a “freakish display” of talent that Brevis himself finds difficult to understand, Brevis struck more than half of his runs in the “V,” including six of his eight sixes.
“That’s just my natural way of hitting,” he said at the press conference afterwards. “I’ve hit thousands of balls and I just want to go out there, enjoy it and have fun and just watch it and then if it’s there, it happens. I don’t try to do it, I’m just trying to be myself and have fun and watch the ball and then it happens.”
“I believe God blessed me with a talent to play like that, to play aggressively. Last year, on 28 December, I made that commitment. I got a few people, they know who they are, who I trust and the main thing was just to be the original Dewald and to be on that side of it and every ball, wherever it is, to watch it and to hit it.”
The phrases “be myself” and “original Dewald” stand out the most because Brevis first went by the moniker Baby AB. Around the same time that he finished as the 2022 under-19 World Cup’s top run scorer, he received that nickname and accepted it. Brevis still looks up to AB de Villiers, after whom he was named, although he felt a lot of pressure to be his successor. He was sent back to the domestic setup to improve his game and, as it turns out, his reputation after only five runs from his maiden Twenty20 Internationals in 2023.
“I’ve always believed that this is where I need to be and where I will be, so I never had any doubt or anything,” he said. “It’s all about cricket, how things work out. It is a roller coaster, you have your ups, you have your downs but I have never ever doubted myself.”