The retirement of AB de Villiers from international cricket left everyone shell-shocked. Given the form he was in, it was a decision which raised a few eyebrows. It was just after the last match for the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the 2018 IPL that he broke the news of his retirement.
He shared a video on his Instagram handle and website where he conceded he was too tired to continue with international cricket for a long time. His omission from the 2019 World Cup will also diminish the chances of South Africa in the quadrennial event.
However, De Villiers has acknowledged the fact he still wants to be a part of the Indian Premier League.
“I have no plans to play overseas, in fact, I hope I can continue to be available for the Titans in domestic cricket,” he had said after announcing his retirement.
However, he clarified during an interview with iol.co.za he still intends to play in the IPL for at least a few years.
De Villiers will play in IPL for the next few years,
“I will keep on playing IPL for a few years, and I would like to play for the Titans, and help some of the youngsters. But there are no set plans. I haven’t been able to say that for a long time,” he confirmed.
“There are some offers on the table from around the world, but it will be nice to wake up and wonder what to do; to be normal. Bangalore is a special place, a second home, really. I played my 100th Test there, and obviously, RCB is a massive part of my life. India as a country has taken me in, and it’s hard to explain what that feels like. I just play cricket.”
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It was a huge shock for the de Villiers fans after he announced his international retirement without a World Cup honour. He would have got yet another opportunity next year but he had said that he had “run out of gas”.
“For a long time, the World Cup was a massive goal. But, in the last few years, I have realised that it isn’t realistic to measure yourself purely on what you achieve in that tournament. That will not be the be-all and end-all of my career,” he stated.
De Villiers’ memory of the 2007 World Cup,
“Yes, I would have loved to win it, but I have great memories from World Cups. The 2007 tournament – my first – was very special. We fell short against Australia when we tried to play too much cricket too soon, but that shift in mentality probably helped us to go over there and win the Test series we then won over there. Personally, I scored my first ODI century in that 2007 tournament, and I loved the whole experience of being in the Caribbean.
“The same goes for the others, in 2011 and in 2015. India has always been close to my heart, because of the passion for cricket, and then obviously 2015 was an amazing game,” he further said about the classic semi-final against New Zealand in which South Africa fell agonisingly short. “We fell on the wrong side of it, but we gave it everything.”
Mr 360 feels it will be unfair to judge a career of a particular cricketer on the basis of what he has achieved in the World Cup.
“I guess that once I acknowledged to myself that I didn’t have to measure my career on one tournament, place so much emphasis on it, it became easier to make my decision,” he revealed. “I also didn’t want to be picking and choosing my way through fixtures from now until then. It wouldn’t be fair.”
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