AB de Villiers reveals the MAIN reason he retired from the Proteas
AB de Villiers had expressed interest in playing in the 2019 World Cup and offered himself just a day before the squad was announced
Proteas legend AB de Villiers recently revealed the main reason he retired from international cricket in 2018, a year before the ICC Cricket World Cup.
The 39-year-old former cricketer shocked many of his fans around the world when announced his international retirement in May 2018.
At that time, de Villiers said he was tired and wanted to spend time with his family.
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According to Wion News, the man known as ‘Mr 360’, played the last few years in international cricket with a detached retina.
“My youngster accidentally kicked me on 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,” AB de Villiers told Wisden Cricket Monthly.
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AB DE VILLIERS ADMITS THE 2015 WORLD CUP TOOK A TOLL ON HIM
De Villiers also revealed that the 2015 World Cup semi-final exit took a toll on him.
“Covid certainly played a role, there’s no doubt about it. From an international perspective, the 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.”
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AB de Villiers had expressed interest in playing in the 2019 ODI World Cup and offered himself just a day before South Africa’s squad was announced. Cricket South Africa (CSA) and the Proteas technical team rejected his request and the star player remained retired.
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“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’,” de Villiers said.
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