The world’s most loved cricketer AB De Villiers announced his retirement from International cricket after the conclusion of last year’s IPL and shocked the cricketing fans all over the world. Considering his top form during the time of his retirement, no one saw it coming. He announced his retirement from the Tux cricket club, a high-performance centre in Pretoria where 14 seasons ago he arrived as a nervous youngster and made his debut against England in 2004.
South African coach Ottis Gibson admitted that the retirement of de Villiers was a big blow to Proteas chance in the upcoming world cup. The veteran of 228 ODIs was part of three world cups- 2007, 2011 and 2015.
De Villiers to make a comeback ?
The RCB batsman will not feature in the upcoming world cup but he may make his return in the 2023 world cup. In chat show, Breakfast with Champions hosted by Gaurav Kapur, the former South African skipper didn’t rule out any chances of playing the next world cup if he is good enough to do that but only on one condition.
When asked about playing in the next world cup, de Villiers gave a quirky reply and said that he would feature in 2023 world cup if India’s MS Dhoni was also part of it.
“How old will I be? 39! I’ll come back if MS (Dhoni) is still around (giggles). If I’m still good enough, who knows eh? I was keen to play the World Cup (2019) but I retired, so it was a very sensitive situation. For the last 3 years of my career, I was labelled as a guy who was picking and choosing when I was playing and when not,” said De Villiers.
“So I got quite a lot of criticism from back home which also played a role in me retiring. And it was difficult for me to then go: ‘Hey, but I’ll still play the World Cup’. You know, it’s the picking and choosing thing again. And it’s quite arrogant to do something like that. But as they say, you can’t have your bread buttered on both sides,” he added.
