AB de Villiers learned his craft before T20 was invented but made the game look easy, regardless of the format
It seems odd now but English people really did used to hate Pablo Picasso, godfather of cubism and the great all-format all-rounder of 20th century art. When Picasso died in 1973 Kingsley Amis wrote in a letter to Philip Larkin: “I see Pablo the piss-poor paint-pusher has fallen off the hooks at last.” Thirty years earlier Winston Churchill is said to have expressed a willingness to “kick him up the backside” if he saw Picasso walking down Whitehall. Evelyn Waugh went through a period of routinely signing off his letters “Death To Picasso!”
Weird. Foreign. Improvisational. Both eyes on same side of face. This seems to have been the basic tone of the objections to Pablo the paint-pusher, who is, needless to say, still going pretty strong and is this year expected to break his own single-year record of $568m of piss-poor artworks sold.
Written by Barney Ronay
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/may/26/ab-de-villiers-departs-leaves-picasso-sized-hole-cricket under the title “AB de Villiers departs and leaves a Picasso-sized hole in cricket | Barney Ronay”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
