No international comeback for retired AB de Villiers
|| CF DESK ||
After months of speculations over his comeback from retirement, Cricket South Africa (CSA) on Tuesday confirmed that AB de Villiers has decided that his retirement decision remains final once and for all.
In May 2018, de Villiers announced his retirement from international cricket, but he has continued to play in franchise T20 tournaments. When he was playing for the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL 2021 last month, it was revealed that he was in talks with South Africa coach Mark Boucher about a potential comeback in preparation for the T20 World Cup, which will be held in October-November in India.
The CSA reported in a press release on Tuesday that talks with de Villiers had come to an end. There was nothing else to say about this development in the press release, which was primarily focused on the squads named for South Africa's upcoming Test and T20I tour of the West Indies.
Cricket South Africa recently had a discussion with De Villiers over the chances of him making a comeback for the national side. In a statement post the discussion, CSA confirmed that De Villiers will remain retired.
"Discussions with AB de Villiers have concluded with the batsman deciding once and for all, that his retirement will remain final," CSA said in a statement.
de Villiers, 37, is among South Africa's greatest-ever batters, their fourth-highest run-getter in Test cricket and their second-highest in ODIs and T20Is. He remains one of the world's finest T20 players, and was in red-hot form during IPL 2021 before the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic brought the tournament to a premature halt, scoring 207 runs in six innings at an average of 51.75 and a strike rate of 164.28.
