Fanie de Villiers, the fast-medium bowler who took 85 wickets in 18 Tests for South Africa and bowled his side to a five-run win over Australia at Sydney in January 1994, turns 62 today. He was born Petrus Stephanus de Villiers in Vereeniging on 13 October 1964, and he was 28 before he played a one-day international and 29 before he played a Test, because South Africa spent his entire twenties shut out of international cricket. The cricket is half of what his name carries. The other half is the money he has raised so that deaf South Africans can hear.
How Did Fanie de Villiers Beat Australia At Sydney In 1994?
Australia needed 117 to win the second Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground, a target so small that commentator Tony Greig had put South Africa’s chances at 100-1 before the innings began. De Villiers had already taken 4/80 in the first innings. He then took 6/43 in the second, finishing with match figures of 10/123, and Australia were bowled out for 111.
The last wicket was a return catch off Glenn McGrath. South Africa won by five runs in the second Test of their first tour of Australia since readmission, and de Villiers was named Man of the Match. At the presentation he was asked about Greig’s odds.
“You know South Africans, we never give up.” – Fanie de Villiers
Fifty Runs And Ten Wickets At The New Wanderers Stadium
A year later he produced the match that still sits alone in South African cricket. Pakistan came to the New Wanderers Stadium for a one-off Test from 19 to 23 January 1995, and de Villiers batted at the bottom of the order for 66 not out off 68 balls with three sixes in it.
He then took 6/81 in the first innings and 4/27 in the second for match figures of 10/108, his best in Test cricket. South Africa won by 324 runs and de Villiers took his second Man of the Match award in a year. He became the first South African to score a fifty and take 10 wickets in the same Test, and he is still the only one.
That was the middle of his best season. Across five Tests in 1994-95 he took 36 wickets at 17.47, and the South African Cricket Annual named him Cricketer of the Year for the second time, six years after the first in 1989.
The Deafness In His Own Family
His brother is deaf. So is his daughter. De Villiers knows what the problem looks like from inside a house, which is why the charity he founded, Hear, exists to do one specific thing: pay for cochlear implants for South Africans who cannot afford them.
A cochlear implant is a device fitted surgically under the scalp that sends sound past the damaged part of the ear and straight to the brain. For a profoundly deaf child it is not an improvement on a hearing aid, it is the difference between sound and no sound, and the earlier it goes in the better the chances that the child learns to speak. The reason a charity has to stand between the device and the family is the price. With the consultations and the operation around it, an implant in South Africa can run to R500 000.
That is the number de Villiers has spent years chipping away at, one fundraiser at a time, for families who were never going to find R500 000 on their own. Every implant he funds is one household where a child starts picking up voices instead of waiting another year for a medical aid to come around.
Why His First Test Only Came At 29
De Villiers matriculated from Heidelberg Volkskool in 1982 and his first representative honours were not in cricket at all. He threw the javelin for South African Schools, and a back injury ended that before he turned 22. The arm action stayed with him.
He trained as a teacher and served two years in the South African Army, reaching the rank of lieutenant, and has credited the early starts of army life with the professional habits he took into cricket. During that service unbleached lime exploded near his face and left him blind for about a week.
His first-class debut came in 1985-86 for Northern Transvaal B, where he opened the bowling and took 5/33 in the second innings. He spent the 1990 season at Kent, made his one-day debut against India at Newlands on 7 December 1992 and his Test debut against Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Boxing Day 1993. An Afrikaans speaker in an English-dominated dressing room, he has described the language barrier as one of the hardest parts of those early years.
The Career Record
- Tests: 18 matches, 85 wickets at 24.27, best innings 6/23, best match 10/108, five five-wicket hauls, two ten-wicket matches
- Test batting: 359 runs at 18.89, highest score 67 not out, two fifties, 11 catches
- One-day internationals: 83 matches, 95 wickets at 27.74, best 4/27
- First-class: 102 matches, 427 wickets at 22.37, best 7/80, 23 five-wicket hauls
- List A: 173 matches, 204 wickets, best 5/30
His last one-day international was against Sri Lanka in Lahore on 8 November 1997 and his last Test against Pakistan at Port Elizabeth on 10 March 1998. He retired from international cricket that year, having bowled outswing and off-cutters at a control rate of 2.57 runs an over in Tests.
What Has Fanie de Villiers Done Since He Stopped Playing?
He went into television commentary, in English and in Afrikaans, and onto the corporate speaking circuit, where he still works. He was also one of five judges at the 1995 Miss World pageant at Sun City, which gives some idea of how far outside the dressing room his name had travelled while he was still playing.
In March 2018, working on the third Test between South Africa and Australia at Newlands, he saw the ball reverse swinging far earlier than a grassy pitch should allow and told the camera operators to go looking for a reason. The footage that came back showed Cameron Bancroft working on the ball, and the scandal that followed took down Steve Smith and David Warner with him.
The 2 600 km Ride And The Floodlight Tower
He does not raise the money from a letterhead. He rode a bicycle 2 600 km from Cape Town to Pretoria and came back with R800 000, close to two implants and two households changed.
Then he climbed the floodlight tower at Centurion, sat on top of it in full view of the ground, and stayed up there until the total read R189 000. He was 29 before the world let him bowl a ball in a Test match, and he has spent the years since making sure other South Africans do not have to wait that long for something they were owed.
