THE BIG INTERVIEW

AB de Villiers is freakish, but not a good bad-wicket batsman: Daryll Cullinan

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Cullinan played 70 Tests and 138 ODIs for South Africa, scoring over 8,000 international runs. © Cricbuzz

Elegant with the bat and eloquent with his words, Daryll Cullinan was a delightful cricketer to watch through the 1990s, long before the era of slam-bang strokeplay set in. In his eight-year long career, Cullinan played 70 Tests and 138 ODIs for South Africa, scoring over 8,000 international runs.

Presently a commentator at the Under-19 World Cup 2016 in Bangladesh, the former South African batsman shared his in-depth views on the issues plaguing South African cricket, the ill-effects of the T20 mindset, why AB de Villiers is a freakish batsman and a lot more in an interview.

Excerpts:

When you see a guy like Sarfaraz Khan hitting big shots at the age of 19, what's the first thought that comes to your mind?

I think you're always going to expect talent to come out of country like India. We also need to remember that they are 19. Their game still has to evolve over time. Often, you see guys like this, (and) in three-four years, you won't hear of them. But (there are) those that want to go on, and he does impress me as one of those guys, one who wants to make a big career out of it. I was also impressed with [Armaan] Jaffer.

Beyond India, it is also exciting to see some of the younger talent. They've got so much to play for today.

This is a generation growing up watching IPL. Few of them, born after 2000, are already millionaires. Do you see that in their batting also?

I see it in all the teams, in all the young guys. To me, there's one important thing - from a batting perspective, you can never get away from solid foundation, a solid technique, but that sort of cricket (IPL) is being played more and more. I've worked with young kids and it's attractive to them, it's almost as if they want to be as good or a better IPL player because that's where the rewards (are there). And there's less appreciation for being a solid Test player. [Virat] Kohli, to me, is a good example. He still plays down the ground. Still, even in T20 cricket, there are moments for good, orthodox cricket.

In that sense, what would you say is the difference between players growing through the ranks in your era and the current one?

See, the difficulty for them today is to be good at all three formats, that's why, for me, AB de Villiers is a freakish player. I was the first batsman in the world who gave up 50-overs cricket, purposely, to play Test cricket. I struggled because in One-Day cricket you're playing balls that you leave alone in Test cricket. You're attacking different lengths. In one-Day cricket, you're quickly getting to this side of the ball, that side of the ball and the difficult thing is that when they get to T20, you play this way and that way and then you get to four or five day cricket, which is also a different mindset. The challenges are great.

Even at the senior level, seeing our national team. There are guys that technically aren't in the mental mindset to bat for long periods. You can play all the shots in the book but four, five hours batting, you can stay only with solid, solid technique. In our junior levels, I am not seeing that.

There's urgency today and then we see batsmen playing T20 cricket which, quite frankly, is easy. No one is going to convince me that's difficult. And the whole reputation is on that. The thinking is too quickly 'oh, he's going to make a Test player.' Our best example is JP Duminy. He's a failure as a Test batsman but he gets to play because he's JP Duminy. He plays a T20 innings and it's 'what a talent'. This is where we need to make a call. It requires a very strict eye from coaches and India are very fortunate they have Rahul (Dravid). We spoke after the Irish game and we shared very briefly, these same thoughts. It was really nice to hear a guy like that emphasize the belief that I have.

Since this generation has grown up in T20 era, are we seeing a future set of batsmen who can adapt across circumstances that the current generation is struggling to?

You have to be hell of a batsman. That's why I go back to AB. AB is a freakish player! I remember, AB, he had only played a couple of Test matches, I was doing commentary against Australia in Centurion and he went to his hundred with three reverse sweep. Fifteen years ago, can you imagine if you played a reverse sweep in Test match cricket. That's how they play. But we run into problems here. In South Africa in recent times, on two or three occasions, we've been bowled out for under 40 overs. That had nothing to do with the pitch. So, they've got challenges, these youngster.

How's it watching AB de Villiers batting the way he did in the Delhi Test where he just shut shop?

You know, that really exposed a lot about our batting. I don't think too many batsmen would've played well under those conditions. Perhaps, the difference, which I don't think has been appreciated, also lay in the difference of the spin attack.

What surprised me was in the first innings of that match, he came in and he was running all over the place. He just tried to look to score and do something different every single ball. I always said, AB de Villiers to me is not a good bad-wicket player. He is not as good as he is a good-wicket player. In Test cricket, you have some guys who are very good bad-wicket players but I don't think AB likes to struggle on a bad wicket. That's my view about him. In the first innings (Nagpur Test), he got about 10 or 15, for the world's best batsman that was a very odd innings.

Is it the pressure of being the world's best batsman, with the crowd chanting 'AB AB'?

I don't think so. We couldn't settle on a way to play against spin. We got too far in front, the left-handers. They played too far in front of the pad. If you play in front of the pad, you're always playing slightly ahead. I always go back and watch [Sachin] Tendulkar and [Jacques] Kallis on those sorts of pitches, they're playing slightly ahead. But we seem to have it in our heads that we go so far ahead. We seem to be left out with the off-spinner coming in from around the wicket, the one that goes on.

If I was the captain and I saw a guy play like that, I'll get my off-spinner around the wicket. Because you never want to get beaten - whether you're a right-hander or a left-hander to an off-spinner or a leg-spinner. You never want to get beaten on the inside. If he wants to get you out, he must find the outside edge. You don't want to be bowled through the gate, you don't want to be caught out LBW and that's the problem if you're playing in front of the pad, if you're not being there, it slides on and it's going to hit you.

So these are little things that worry me. Because we've been coming here for 20 years now. The transfer of information through the ranks is lacking. You've got Dravid, giving his feedback at the U19 level. Look how exposed we looked in that game against Bangladesh Under-19. It is very disheartening for me.

Coaching is about demonstration, as well. I'd love to go and take four or five of them and say come let me show you how to do it. I really wanted to do well against India and Sri Lanka because I had a very poor record against Australia and Shane Warne. The first thing was 'Cullinan can't play spin' - I got five hundreds against India, five against Muralitharan. At least I could prove them wrong. I really, really had to work hard at that. And we learnt through experience.

I loved Mohammad Azharuddin against the slow ball , he was a master. (It was the) first time in Test match I saw a guy come down the wicket, he wasn't to the pitch of the ball and he kicked it away with his pad. But the important thing is, watching guys like that, the pad was the second line of defence. And you have to learn to watch the ball off the pitch. South Africans, we generally play at the line. But you have to play late, and watch the ball off the pitch. These are skills you learn through experience and watching.

As a batsman, what would be some mistakes you grew up on, something that was a mistake initially but you went back to the nets, worked on it and applied in a match?

All the sides outside the sub-continent talk about it. It's very difficult for these kids, you can't expect them to have a complete game, they're hardly 19. When we came to the sub-continent, our bats were too light. The sweet spot was too high. You learn to hit low, you have to learn to use the bottom hand - not across the line, use the bottom hand at the last minute like a top spin. You also, when the chance is right, get the left pad out of the way and play through the off-side. And to really defend it, you know, get to the pitch of the ball, don't ever play from the back. The use of the feet and understanding the use of the pad, you know, those sort of things. We all had to learn to start sweeping. It was something we were not brought up on. We were fortunate we had Bob Woolmer as a coach. Bob had experience, but we had to learn quickly. Early on, there was a belief 'South Africa can't play spin'. Our generation ensured that that was irrelevant. With [Graeme] Smith and Kallis and [Hashim] Amla, we had long lost that (tag).

But suddenly now, with so many youngsters coming through the system, they're not getting what I am talking about. They'll have to learn. You see, when you come to these conditions, if I want to watch a kid bat, I want to see him getting out in a way which makes sense to me, because you can work on that. You can develop that skill. But when I sit and watch a kid get out, even talking about our national players, get out, I say, I can't understand that.

Dean Elgar's first movement against off-spinners coming around the wicket is he opens the front foot. How many times was he playing away from the body? They were sitting ducks for R Ashwin's line. One thing you learn is that on sub-continent wickets, it takes longer to get in. The bowlers bowl longer spells. It wasn't just for me, it took time.

Would you say then, that patience is a lost virtue on the current lot of players across teams?

It's lost a little I think, because of the pace at which they play these days. But particularly coming here. I remember Shaun Pollock said once, to get your five wickets in a game, you've got to bowl 26-28-30 overs in a day. Patience is key. It's about how hard you get in here, you get a feel for it and you get to just go with it.

Are South Africa mentally down at the moment, having lost in India and then conceding games at home to England?

Some of the guys arrived in South Africa out of form. I can see technically they weren't that strong. But coming back home, they had one four-day game. I was really annoyed when I saw some of our batsmen, after the tour of India, take a break. What do you need a break for? You've hardly batted there. So some of them after the India tour walked straight into the England series and then we got horribly exposed at the Wanderers. Their defence is that there's a transition, yes they are in one, but (the issue) deeper than that. I guess as players and coaches they can't admit it. [Hansie] Cronje always used to say, Test cricket is not a finishing school. Perhaps, that's a deep concern.

Apart from AB, which batsman in the current mould do you love watching?

I enjoy Kohli, I used to enjoy Kevin Pietersen a lot. In terms of Test cricket, Joe Root. I enjoy him as he's a conventional good Test batsman. I also enjoyed Younis Khan and [Kumar] Sangakkara was a lovely player to watch. I also like Hashim. Among Australians, I don't think there's anyone I find as an attractive batsman there. I really like Virat, I like that he has a good idea of how to play Test cricket as well.

Batting is also a lot about mental adjustments. Your battles against Shane Warne are well-documented. You had to take a break after that?

Yeah, they dropped me. I played four Tests, but If I look back on that, if I could do it differently, I would have learnt to sweep into the spin, something with stubbornness, I didn't do back then. And if you look at that era - guys that played him well, swept him well. Sachin (Tendulkar) swept the hell out of him when he came to India. In Chennai, when Warne bowled around the wicket, he just kept sweeping.

When I played Muralitharan, I looked to sweep every ball because it was easier with the ball going away. I asked Martin Crowe, 'what do you think of Warnie?' He said, 'two things - every variation he had, the slider, the flipper all of those went straight' and he used to sweep him every ball. So you know that was a learning process out of my failures.

Who is a good bad-wicket player?

The stodgy openers with low backlift. They are not big stroke players because there's danger. I think VVS Laxman would fit the mould. Even Dravid comes to the mind. You really need to have a solid technique, there's a certain skill. You need to be fearless, particularly when the ball is bouncing. The key is to be able to play late. Sachin fit into any bracket but VVS was a good example, too.

I think among our guys, Gary Kirsten was very good. Look AB is not perfect, you've got to point out something in his game.

Have you watched Kagiso Rabada bowl?

Yes, he's hugely exciting. I think, at the moment, in South Africa there's so much talk about transformation, and getting black cricketers through. He couldn't have come at a better time. But again, he's 20, he has got to fill out. He's a man in a young man's body. If he stays fit... and he can bat, I honestly think he can bat. I mentioned it in South Africa that even he knows that he is taken seriously because that sort of a guy could bat at no. 7 in Test cricket.

He is a revelation back home. Really for a guy that young, in his first Test match, he's done really well. Now I know, two years ago he was in school and one of the kids that I've helped is the same age or a year younger. I asked him two days ago, tell me about Kagiso in school. He said he bowled too short, he hardly hit the wickets because he was too quick for the kids. And I thought that in such a short space of time, he got a lot of wickets with the full delivery. To me, that kid is a quick learner.

Dale Steyn was a very quick learner. I brought Dale to first-class cricket in my last season. He made his debut when we started the season. I had seen his talent in the season before in a warm-up game and he delivered a peach.

Ray Jennings and I've had a good working relationship. I captained before him for one season. So I said to him, he (Steyn) has to take the new ball, he can't bowl in the middle overs. He bowled with Pollock and [Makaya] Ntini. In the first two games, [Marcus] Trescothick and [Andrew] Strauss murdered him. They got to about 180 without loss. When Steyn went to England, he learnt a lot. That was his strength. He would listen and has turned out to be arguably our greatest bowler.

Do you think the time has come for him to retire? Is he on a downward curve?

No no, he's not done. What's happened with Dale is they're resting him for too much. So, South Africa are saying, you don't have to play that tour, this tour, we are going to rest you. To me, it's not about him managing his rest. Here's the difference, it's about managing his recovery. He said after the third Test match, I am injured because I am not bowling enough. There is a difference in that. I think it's great coming from him. You manage the recovery, rest is putting your feet up, go surfing, which he does.

In the last 2-3 years, he started to get slow. He's only found his rhythm, got bowling fit or picked up pace in the second or third Test match. It hasn't come as a surprise. Before the series started, I said to my brother-in-law, Steyn won't get to the third Test. It's been coming. He got the injury in the first one, the day he realised it, he said he isn't bowling enough.

Allan Donald bowled a lot, he played 12 back-to-back seasons and then came and played for South Africa, then in and around in early days in international cricket, he was still playing in England. He had 24 seasons, back to back. Then he stopped playing county cricket, in two seasons he lost his rhythm, injury... injury... retirement.

You said Rabada can be a good bat at No. 7. Nowadays the South African tail is not as good as it used to be. Where is the quintessential South African all-rounder?

It's tough because there isn't one really. And when they lost Kallis, I don't need to tell you how huge that was. From a pure batting and bowling point of view, I don't think his (Rabada) batting would be good enough to fill that role. The guy at seven makes useful contributions but at the moment we don't have one.

That's how Gary Kirsten was smart and something I call for, AB in Tests must keep. That's the first move Gary made. They always then had the option of an extra bowler. Any captain would like an extra batsman or a bowler. At the moment, there isn't one. There are very few great sides that haven't had an all-rounder. It's gold in Test match cricket. We've got some work to do in terms of our Test team.

Next three years are going to be very interesting. Michael Holding in an interview, he asked a question, 'could South Africa quickly go the way of West Indian cricket?' It all goes back to structure, coaching development and players.

But the amazing thing about our cricket is we keep producing some of the best talent in the world. Rabada for example. Quinton De Kock, he's got work to do, but he's an exciting player. We just keep coming up with good cricketers, which is nice. I'd just like to see them develop to their full potential, because there's a lot more Rabadas in South Africa.

'AB de Villiers to me is not a good bad-wicket player. He is not as good as he is a good-wicket player' ©Reuters

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