AB de Villiers

AB de Villiers was a former South African cricketer

AB de Villiers (born 17 February 1984), commonly known as AB de Villiers was a former South African cricketer who played for the South African national team. He is regarded as one of the greatest batsmen of all time. De Villiers holds many batting records, including the world's fastest One Day International (ODI) 50, 100 and 150, the fastest Test century by a South African and the fastest Twenty20 International (T20I) 50 by a South African. He also plays for Titans in domestic cricket and Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League.

He began his international career as a wicket-keeper/batsman (returning to the role for a few years in mid-career), but has played most often solely as a batsman. He would bat at various positions in the batting order but predominantly in the middle-order. Noted as one of the most innovative batsmen in the modern game, de Villiers is noted for many unorthodox shots behind the wicket-keeper and slips. He made his international debut in a Test match against England in 2004 and first played an ODI in early 2005. His debut in Twenty20 International cricket came in 2006. As of 2016, he has passed 8,000 runs in both Test and ODI cricket and has a batting average of over fifty in both forms of the game. He is also the only batsman in ODI cricket to have completed a trio of 5000+ runs, 50+ average and 100+ strike rate in his career. As of May 2018, he scored 20,014 runs in international cricket since debut just lying second behind Kumar Sangakkara.

De Villiers captained South Africa in all formats, but since his injuries, he stepped down from Test captaincy and continued in limited over formats. However, with defeats in the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy and England series, he stepped down from limited over captaincy as well. On 23 May 2018, he announced that he was retiring from all forms of international cricket.

On 23 May 2018, De Villiers announced his retirement from all forms of international cricket. The announcement came as a complete shock to fans all over the world as everyone expected him to retire after the 2019 World Cup He announced his retirement through a video uploaded to twitter in which he explained his shocking decision. One of the statements in his monologue was "I have had my turn, and to be honest, I am tired." A few weeks after his announcement about retiring from international cricket, he clarified and said that he will continue playing T20 leagues for a few more years.