Saluting Faf du Plessis: An Underrated Giant Of The Game We Ought To Celebrate More!

In April of 2009, when the late Hollywood actor Michael Clarke Duncan, most remembered for The Green Mile, was asked to say a line or two in honour of America’s favourite son, Tom Hanks, the actor exclaimed during the AFI lifetime award presentation, “If I had to express what I truly feel for you at this moment, every light bulb in this place would explode!” Sincerely speaking, the moment his career, one that’s currently walking on its final legs in international cricket will complete its long mile, every South African heart would melt with immensity of respect and sheer awe for none other than Faf du Plessis.

The reasons for this are many and the words with which to express limitless. The only problem, however, is that there aren’t enough pages that one can fill with an ode to a man more deserving of credit than anyone else in the current conception of South African cricket, albeit one whose contributions are often unsung or go overlooked for reasons no intelligence agency in the world can decode and no Sherlock can point a finger to.

If you purely talk in numbers, then Faf du Plessis, with 11,198 runs in the game is no lame holder of the bat.

Someone who happens to have scored the second-highest (individual) ODI score for South Africa- remember his 185 in February 2017 against Sri Lanka when he hopped, paddle swept, even jumped to execute his rasp cuts and glorious square drives in an inning that was as attacking as being confounded by a wild beast in the Kruger National park.

With 1,500 plus T2oI runs, Faf proved he could beautifully adapt to the very game in which he’d demonstrated tenacity and patience, and as a matter of fact, from the word go. He did that brilliantly scoring over 4,000 Test runs, of which 888 came alone against an opponent that often reserves fierce verbal expletives in addition to testing spells of bowling. Australia would be the opponent against whom the world would see the birth of the Faf du Plessis legend, when on a dry Adelaide wicket of 2012, a Test debutant cracked a 78, before holding onto an end, all on his own, for a defiant 110 off 376 deliveries.

To this day, the world stands in awe of a certain Abraham Benjamin de Villiers, a hero from the land that also gave us Jacques Henry Kallis, but little is reserved for appreciating a man who lent calmness amid a period of turmoil to a country that, from the onset of 2016 was as drawn to petty politics and indescribable decisions (the suspension of the Mzansi League) as is the Middle East to endless bloodbath and carnage.

How easy it is to be a fan and pass judgement on careers, left right and centre, especially from the air-conditioned realm of armchair expertism.

Though, ever wondered how hard might it have been for Faf du Plessis- the man on the ground- who watched one legend after another walk into the sunset, think de Villiers, Morkel, Tahir, Philander, Amla?

When in the 2019 World Cup, Faf evidenced Amla felled by a vicious Archer bouncer in a hapless contest for the Proteas, he wasn’t merely watching a top batsman fall; he was witnessing the begrudging sight of a once-mighty team being brought down on its knees.

Yet, did he crib about the situation, leading a side minus Dale Steyn in the mother of all sporting battles? Well, on the contrary, Faf offered the team some light by leading by an example, stroking 387 precious runs from just 8 games.

In a series where de Kock was horridly out of form and where the likes of Rassie were all too new to the game, Faf led the way for South Africa by scoring the only century of the world cup, a classy 100 against Australia, before ending the calendar year with a staggering accumulation of 814 runs from just 17 outings.

What we recall to this day is how ‘cool’ Faf tried to be when explaining the absence of a cricketer, he remarked, “he’s currently in bed with my sister,” when could so easily have used the term they got married the night before, but what we strangely never recollect are his ostentatious returns from the bat for South Africa in limited-overs cricket.

Not once since the ODI calendar year 2014 has du Plessis averaged less than 48 with the bat, ending the last three ODI years, 2017 to 2019, with averages of 60,62, and 67.

2153 of his 5500 ODI runs came in these last three years of playing 50-over cricket, a phase during which his average strike rate was almost 90. A period of time wherein the likes of Jasprit Bumrah, Viswa Fernando, Pat Cummins, Trent Boult, Shaheen Afridi and the likes have only risen in their craft.

A batsman extraordinaire, a captain who placed his team before himself, a leader of men, a giver of hope, the keeper of the flame that’s the Proteas fire, Faf du Plessis, who turns 37, occupies a legacy that deserves greater introspection than offered.

A “hard-as-nails” cricketer with a Test average of 70 versus New Zealand has emerged as a beacon of consistency in white-ball cricket, especially amid a climate of uncertainty and rift in a cricketing culture that large became political when the country it was representing prided itself on being called the ‘Rainbow Nation.’

Do Faf’s stats- 22 centuries, 56 half centuries- do enough to deserve a seat in the current firmament of cricket’s elite group of batsmen, the Fab Four, comprising Williamson, Kohli, Root, and Smith? On what measure barring Test numbers where his average is a respectable but not salutation-worthy 40, is Faf du Plessis less of a glorious bat than a Joe Root, for argument’s sake?

The man whose chiseled physique and dapper good looks would any day beckon a forthcoming career in modelling and who knows, even filmdom holds the record of the South African captain with third-highest number of Test wins- 18 (behind only Cronje and Smith).

Yet, we stay in awe of his gym-toned, salad-eating built appetite that displays clinical appetite for destruction in shorter formats- don’t we, whilst much of our focus should be for all that he’s done for South Africa in arguably it’s most difficult period in the post 2015 World Cup era.

A majority of us, to this day, stand in pure awe- and we must- in Gary Kirsten‘s 188 against the UAE, a high-class knock compiled when Faf wasn’t even a teenager, but little is reserved to join hands in admiration for the scorer of second-highest individual ODI score by a South African, a feat that even the likes of Kallis and de Villiers didn’t achieve.

And while one doesn’t quite know where might one place Faf du Plessis’s 185 against Sri Lanka in terms of effort, it’s time to admit that history isn’t only written by the winner.

Perhaps a greater space must be afforded to the trier, the doer of things, the one on whom a unit could rely, akin to a Field Marshal who shoulders the weight of a battalion when it’s a bloodbath out there and not to mention, skullduggery.

In Faf du Plessis, we don’t have a Lara-like artist or a Tendulkar-like magician; what we certainly have is the last lion of South Africa who made contesting the team appear like a challenge where you go to a wildlife safari but on your feet, not in the confines of a safe off-roader.

The roar of this lion and his exploits deserve to reverberate around the world. Happy 37th, Faf!