‘My Blood is Blue’: Dewald Brevis Says He Will Run Through a Wall for MI

Dewald Brevis, who is also known as ‘Baby AB’ due to his resemblence to the South Africa great when handling a cricket bat, will be turning out for MI New York in the 2023 Major League Cricket (MLC).

The 20-year-old star batter said Mumbai Indians have taken care of him.

“It feels like my blood feels blue, the way I’ve been taken care of, it’s a big thing for me,” said Brevis in an interview with Cricbuzz.

“The MI family makes me feel like I belong. They backed me at a very young age after the under-19 World Cup and gave me a platform. And I’ll always be grateful to that. I’ll always be true to that. So, I’ll run through a wall for them. And the bond is very special.”

Dewald Brevis shot to prominence a the the Under-19 World Cup back in 2022 as smashed the ball around, playing reverse-scoops, slogging them deep over cow corner.

Come the IPL auction, few days later, he triggerd a bidding war.

CSK and PBKS wanted him. From his base price of 20 lakhs INR, they raise him to 1.6cr INR.

That is when Mumbai Indians jumped in, promting Punjab to withdraw, but CSK didn’t. Not until 3cr INR, and not until he became the highest-paid under-19 player, going to Mumbai.

Brevis used the time at IPL on the sidelines to work on his game with head coach Mark Boucher.

“It’s tough dealing with your emotions when you are not playing. It can be tough. But I worked on a lot of things with coach Mark Boucher. It’s been a year for me playing at a higher level, if the opposition analyzes me as a batsman, it’s important to have a few tricks up my sleeve to foil their plans,” he had said.

Even Robin Peterson, General Manager at MI Cape Town and the Head Coach at MI New York, sees the difference in Brevis’ game. “I think at the U19 level because he was so much better than everybody else that he could just thrive on talent and instinct. He didn’t need to think too much. He could just play and intimidate opponents at his age group level. The minute he went up, he was competing with men basically as a schoolboy,” said Peterson.

“Now he talks a lot about visualization around his game. His recovery and getting his body ready to perform at its optimum. He understands part of your mental prep is understanding the opposition, you coming up against the conditions you are playing in, how they may try and combat you. These are conversations that he has on a regular basis which he might not have had a year ago.”

Brevis now is with the MI New York camp for the inaugural MLC season, and surely, SURELY, he’d be dying to get out there onto the cricket pitch and show the world his progress. Trust us, we are dying to see him tonk them into the stands with that usual swagger, without bothering to look up.