AB de Villiers
AB de Villiers. Image Credits: Twitter

The IPL season 2022 will be the first year for RCB without AB de Villers since they bought him in the 2011 auction. The South African player has been an integral part of the franchise who won them many matches single-handedly.

In his 11-year stint with the franchise, de Villiers scored 4491 runs in 144 innings with an average of 41.20 and a strike rate of 158.63. Despite batting in the lower middle order, he scored 2 centuries and 37 fifties for the franchise.

Without a doubt, Royal Challengers Bangalore has a big void to fill as they are looking to build a team in the mega auction. Ahead of the auction, they retained three players in form of Virat Kohli, Glenn Maxwell, and Mohammed Siraj.

AB de Villiers played an unbeaten 75-run knock against the Delhi Capitals [P/C: iplt20.com]
AB de Villiers [P/C: iplt20.com]

AB de Villiers announced his retirement from all forms of cricket last year in November

On the eve of the mega auction, RCB’s head coach recalled the memories of the legendary South African player as he said that no one can replace him.

“I am very sure that there is not a single player on planet earth who can fill in the job that AB did for RCB over such a long period of time. He was magical even in the last couple of seasons.

“So we are certainly going to miss him but we will have to cope with the challenge and I see a lot of opportunities there where we can do something with our team combinations. So those are the questions that we will have to answer,” Sanjay Bangar said in a video released by RCB on Twitter.

AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli (Image Credit: Twitter)
AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli (Image Credit: Twitter)

AB de Villiers announced his retirement from all forms of cricket in November last year. He called it a day from international cricket earlier in 2018. With Virat Kohli, he shared a great camaraderie on and off the field.

In the first three years of IPL, he represented Delhi Daredevils. In his IPL career, he scored 5162 runs with a whopping strike rate of 151.69 which included 3 hundreds and 40 fifties.

Even in his last IPL season, he scored 313 runs with a strike rate of 148.34 which included 16 sixes in the season.

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