AB de Villiers, the former South African cricketer, is largely recognized as an all-time great, because of his tremendous batting prowess and reputation as a team player.
He not only captained the South African squad throughout all three formats but also suffered the heartbreak of the 2015 World Cup semi-finals. The cricket world was caught away when AB de Villiers unexpectedly bid farewell to International cricket in 2018.
de Villiers stayed involved in franchise cricket till 2021. Surprisingly, more than two years after stepping away from professional matches, AB de Villiers recently divulged to renowned cricket journalist Melinda Farrell the presence of an eye ailment that he had sustained around the time of his retirement. This revelation happened during a chat about his experiences, including his last professional match in the 2021 IPL.
“My youngster accidentally kicked me in my eye with his heel. I started really losing vision in the right eye. When I got the surgery done the doctor actually asked me, ‘How in the world did you play cricket like this?’. Luckily my left eye did a decent job for the last two years of my career,” De Villiers was quoted by Wisden.
De Villiers admitted his desire to stage a comeback for the Proteas in the 2019 World Cup. However, he disclosed the reasons behind his choice not to rescind his retirement decision.
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He said, “Covid certainly played a role, there’s no doubt about it. From an international perspective, that 2015 World Cup hurt big time. It took me a while to get over that and then, when I got back into the side and I was ready to commit, I didn’t feel the same culture that I really needed at that time.
I often found myself thinking, I don’t know, eh? Could this be the end of my career? I didn’t even really want to play IPL or anything else. I got away from everything in 2018 and then decided to push one more time with a bit of Test cricket, to try and beat India and Australia over here, and then I’ll call it. I didn’t want any spotlight on me. I just wanted to say, I had a great time, thank you very much,” he further added.
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