SOUTH AFRICA TOUR OF ZIMBABWE, 2025
Dewald Brevis will make his Test debut in the first Test against Zimbabwe ©SA20
If you’ve been near enough cricket headlines in recent years, you would have struggled not to come across one Dewald Brevis.
He scored two centuries and three 50s in the 2022 under-19 World Cup and broke Shikhar Dhawan’s run-scoring record for the tournament. His 57-ball 162 for the Titans against the Knights in October 2022 was then the fastest T20 150 – off 52 – yet scored. He labours under the weighty nickname “Baby AB”. Yes, that AB. As in De Villiers.
“AB’s played a big role,” Brevis said in audio released on Friday (June 27) after it was confirmed he would make his Test debut against Zimbabwe in Bulawayo on Saturday. “[Mark Boucher] as well … there’s a few people. There’s my school coach, Deon Botes. He’s going to be here with my family. He’s played a key role – he’s known who I am since I was a small boy. I want to be that boy playing cricket because that’s the most important thing.”
Brevis had told all of the above about his selection, along with good friend Tilak Varma, with whom he has shared dressing-rooms with Mumbai Indians and Hampshire. Collectively, they were “just the people in my inner circle, the people who help me in tough times and in the good times”.
His outer circle is growing, and will do exponentially once he is an international. He’s only 22, but it seems as if millions of cricket people around the world have been waiting for the moment.
Codi Yusuf will also make his debut on Saturday, along with Lhuan-dre Pretorius. Yusuf hasn’t had the Brevis treatment, even though he’s five years older and has played 33 first-class matches compared to Brevis’ two. But Yusuf hasn’t appeared in the IPL. And no-one has called him Baby anything. That doesn’t mean he can’t have an inner circle of his own.
“The first person I called after finding out was my wife [Ashlynn Yusuf],” Yusuf said. “We go through a lot of our lives together, so I felt like it was only fair that she deserved to know first. I also called my parents [Lauren and Ardiel Yusuf]. They’ve been a big support structure in my life and it’s a very proud moment for them. My love of the game started when they bought me my first cricket set.”
Yusuf doesn’t have AB de Villiers in his corner. But he does have Allan Donald, his bowling coach at the Lions: “He doesn’t do a lot of technical stuff with me, but he definitely helps the way I think about the game and approach it. It’s very high intensity, and it helps when you go into a match; making sure you play as hard as you train.”
Yusuf doesn’t have AB de Villiers in his corner. But he does have Allan Donald ©Getty
As contrasting as Brevis’ and Yusuf’s paths to the Test side have been, there are also connections. Like disappointment.
Brevis played two T20Is against Australia in August and September 2023, but he made five and nought and hasn’t been seen in a South Africa shirt since.
“Being left out was tough, but I was young and grateful for how I handled that and for the people I had around me,” he said. “It made me more hungry for the game and to perform. I knew what I had to do and I put in the work and I kept believing.”
Brevis has primarily been a white-ball presence in the public consciousness, but he isn’t short on respect for the red-ball game: “It’s tough. You have to get yourself into the dirt and be on your feet in the field the whole day, trying to look for brilliance.”
Yusuf turned disappointment into determination: “I was a batter pretty much my whole career, and I used to bowl spin. In high school, one of the guys hit me out of a net. I went to fetch the ball and I said, ‘I’m going to run in and bowl pace.’ I did, and I hit the guy. I was like, ‘I’m not going to bowl another ball of spin from this day onwards. And that’s how it happened.”
Whatever the differences between them, Yusuf doubtless knows how Brevis felt when he said: “I’ve been looking at my Test cap the whole time since I got it. It’s very special.”
It is. And on Saturday there will be three brand new ones for inner and outer circles to celebrate.
© Cricbuzz
