Did anyone else wake up in the middle of the night and hope that AB’s retirement was just a bad dream, before rocking themselves back to sleep?

No? Oh, me neither.

Yesterday the world’s most talented cricketer (and possibly sportsman, although Lionel Messi might disagree) shocked us all with his retirement from the international game, and his peers reacted with all the usual messages of goodwill and respect.

In honour of AB’s on-field heroics, we thought we would dedicate our Throwback Thursday to one of his off-field exploits.

You have seen his music video with Ampie du Preez, right?

What can’t the man do?

Oh, you want more? Ag ja nee lekker hey – here he is with wife Danielle:

While you’re here, why don’t we make the most of it. Some stats below from Cricinfo:

1 – AB de Villiers is the only batsman who has played 50-plus innings at a 50-plus average and a 100-plus strike rate in ODI cricket. The batsman who comes closest is MS Dhoni, who had a 50-plus average and a 100-plus strike rate after 42 ODI innings.

5 – ODI hundreds when coming in to bat after the 25th over; no other batsman has more than two such hundreds (Virat Kohli and Jos Buttler have two each). De Villiers also has 21 ODI hundreds at No. 4 or lower; the next best is 17, by New Zealand’s Ross Taylor.

2 – Batsmen who have scored 5000-plus runs at 50-plus average in both Tests and ODIs: de Villiers and Virat Kohli.

62.11 – De Villiers’ Test average at No. 5, the best among all batsmen with 2500 or more runs at this position. Michael Clarke is behind the South Africa batsman with an average of 60.80.

71.16 – De Villiers’ average in his last Test series, the second highest among among batsmen who have scored 300-plus runs in their last series, in the last 30 years. Only Brian Lara signed off with a greater flourish, averaging 89.60 in his last series, against Pakistan.

No, you’re the one overreacting, so get it together.

[source:cricinfo]