Fanie de Villiers
An international cricketer and well known sporting personality, Fanie de Villiers established himself as a South African sports hero with his match winning performance against Australia in Sydney in 1993/4, a game still regarded by the media as the most historical and emotional win ever.
Within the first two years, he became one of the top three bowlers in the world, a position he held for five years.
In 1995 he was dubbed the best bowler in the world.
In the year 2000, Radio 702’s Jenny Crwys-Williams set-out to find the man of the Millennium in South-Africa. After a month of listeners’ voting, Fanie made the top three. He got the final nod because of his ‘all-roundership’ both on and off the field – and was dubbed ‘Man of the Millennium’ in South-Africa.
Above all Fanie will always be remembered by the cricket public as a player that enjoyed the game with a smile, and his antics on and off the field made him the newsmaker of South-Africa in 1996. His support to different charities put him above the rest of the sportsmen in South-Africa.
Fanie’s personal highlights include:
- Starting the charity ‘Hear’ to raise funds for Cochlear Implants in South-Africa
- SA vs. Pakistan at the Wanderers, 1996: 10 wickets plus 66 not out, including introducing
the reverse sweep against Salim Malik into International Cricket. - Being one of five Judges in the Miss World Pageant in 1995
- Cycling from Cape Town to Pretoria for 2600km to raise funds for his Charity
- Northern Transvaal Cricketer of the year – x3
- Northern Transvaal Sportsman of the year – 1995
- Fanie is the only SA player in history of South-African cricket to have scored a half century and taken 10 wickets in the same Test Match. Until today, in one day cricket, Fanie is still regarded by World Cricket as the most economical fast bowler to have played the game.
Fanie’s career highlights include:
- Northern Transvaal cricket – 13 years
- National Team – 9 years
- World Eleven team – 1996
- SA Cricket player of the year – x3
- SA Sportsman of the year – 1995
He had to give up his athletic career because of his successes on the cricket field. At his last meeting at the SA National u/21 level he won himself a silver medal. He is well entrenched and he is an owner of a few businesses.
On the speaking front, Fanie believes that any successful speech is based on three pillars: Content, humour
and identifying with the audience and he delivers on all three in truckloads.
To strive for excellence everyone must identify the positive and negative influences in their lives.
This talk is based on the difference between the worlds of the reasonable man and business. Fanie discusses the parameters of reasonability and how most of us stay inside those boundaries. And how excellence is achieved completely outside those boundaries.
He demonstrates how the majority of us are indoctrinated into the world of the average and mediocrity.
The main goal of this one hour talk is to sell the GOSPEL OF BELIEF that we can change the effectiveness of what we do and that whatever we do, we can do it better.
A new world of extraordinary achievements and efforts will seem possible after the talk.