Johannesburg: South African ODI captain AB de Villiers has become the country's first living cricketer to have a suite named after him. The provincial franchise Titans decided to do this following De Villiers' multiple record-breaking success against the visiting West Indies last week.
It is the first time that part of a cricket stadium in the country is named after a living player.
Titans chief executive Jacques Faul said the idea of naming suites after players came to him when he recently visited some of the most renowned American football and baseball stadiums there.
"The practice there is to name suites after their star players and I decided that the Titans should take the lead in that regard," Faul told the Afrikaans daily Beeld.
"There are 60 suites here and the intention is to honour our current and former players in this manner," Faul said, adding that it was a "wonderful privilege" to name the first suite after De Villiers.
"He is a very special player and also an ambassador for the game and I can think of no one more worthy than him to name our first suite."
"He has been playing from school level at this field and is undoubtedly the darling of SuperSport Park.
"Some players are born to achieve something great, others reach greatness with their playing and yet others get gifted with greatness. AB is all three."
Two pictures of De Villiers were also unveiled together with the naming - one of a famous dive in his Titan kit and another in his Proteas outfit. Currently ranked second in the ICC Test and first in the ODI batting rankings, de Villiers has scored 7606 and 7459 runs in 98 Tests and 179 ODIs respectively in his decade-long international career.
