ABdV’s innings today was like the evil twin to Hayden’s yesterday. Where Hayden rigorously left the ball alone outside off stump, ABdV would play and miss with similar application. I don’t think he deliberately let a ball go through to the keeper all day. Where Hayden would plunder the ball entering his refined strike zone to the long off or cover boundary, ABdV would slash at anything marginally outside off stump and edge it over or through the slip cordon for four. He was eventually out trying to cut a ball that hit his pads in front of off stump.

The two archetypes that would constitute the ABdV innings if it were to be digitised would be something like this:

1. Symonds to de Villiers, no run, a beauty! short of length outside off stump, moving away off the seam, gets beaten.

0. Lee to de Villiers, FOUR, short and wide outside off stump, de Villiers cuts hard, gets the top edge, just over Warne at first slip to the thirdman fence.

65 and 61 respectively, Hayden and ABdV then, themselves, become two equal yet opposing binary values defining the test match.