Dewald Brevis: Baby AB

One thing you could never accuse Dewald Brevis of is lack of confidence. As a teenager studying at the renowned Affies school in Pretoria, he came to know that a certain AB de Villiers was visiting his old cricket master. Brevis and a friend quickly made their way to the teacher’s room and joined the queue of autograph seekers. But Dewald’s ambitions went beyond getting a signature in a notebook.

He followed de Villiers to his car and somehow convinced him to share his phone number. Over the following weeks and months, there were a few texts and calls. Then one day, de Villiers ended up in the back garden of the Brevis family, passing on tips that he had picked up during the course of a 14-year-long international career to a young Dewald.

We don’t know exactly what was shared, but Brevis put the knowledge gained to good use at the Under-19 World Cup in the Caribbean in early 2022. He failed in just 1 innings out of 6 played and was comfortably the highest run scorer in the competition. The fact that the rest of the South African Under-19 team line-up barely performed in the big games meant that his batting got even more attention.

With the junior event now televised, scouts from the Indian T20 League liked what they saw. At the mega auction in February 2022, Brevis was one of a handful of Under-19 stars who created quite a buzz. Despite plenty of interest from the Chennai team, the reigning champions, he found a home with the Mumbai team, the most successful in the competition’s history with 5 titles.

But as other young talents have discovered, the Indian T20 League is a tough place to thrive. Brevis knows that he faces a real challenge to break into the Mumbai team in the first place. But with Quinton de Kock and the Pandya brothers having left, there are gaps to be filled in the XI. It would be surprising if Mumbai spent so much money just to put Brevis on the bench.

It took even Kohli a couple of seasons to really establish himself in the league. In fact, when the competition was played in South Africa in 2009 and the Brevis family first watched it closely, it was Manish Pandey that was considered the bigger talent. There is usually less patience with foreign signings, though, and Brevis knows he’ll have to hit the ground running when he gets his chance. De Villiers and many other good judges of the game believe that he’ll do just fine.

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