Johannesburg [South Africa], August 3 : Former South African pacer Dale Steyn hailed AB de Villiers for his fine performances in the recently concluded World Championship of Legends (WCL), saying that the 41-year-old is "better than half the internationals at the IPL".
De Villiers lit up the UK crowd with his performances in the WCL, which concluded with South Africa Champions lifting the title after beating Pakistan Champions in the finals on Saturday. During the title clash, De Villiers made an unbeaten 120* in 60 balls, with 12 fours and seven sixes, helping his team chase down 196 with nine wickets in hand. The 'Mr 360' was imperious in the tournament, top-scoring with 429 runs in six innings at an average of 143.00, with a strike rate of 220, with three centuries and a fifty.
Speaking on his X, Steyn said, "Unpopular/Popular opinion. AB is still better than half the internationals at IPL. Maybe even more."
https://x.com/DaleSteyn62/status/1951948278917960009
This year has been incredible for AB, not only did he make his return to the cricket field after three years and entertained the masses, but he also saw Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and South Africa lift their maiden Indian Premier League (IPL) and ICC World Test Championship (WTC) titles respectively, as a spectator in the stadium.
De Villiers last played competitive cricket in the IPL 2021 for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), scoring 313 runs in 14 matches with two fifties and a best score of 76*.
Back in 2023, the right-hander described how he had played for the last two years with a detached retina. Later on, De Villiers described an incident involving his son, which injured his right eye.
"I did speak about it casually, I was hoping it would not become a headline. I will explain myself again. It was an accident a few years back, my eldest son did a backflip, and I was busy with my middle son John. He kicked me with his heel on my right eye. I did not think much of it at that time. I fell on the carpet in shock, I was scared to take my hands away from my eyes, I thought my eye was out, literally. When I took my hands away, I could still see. It was fine," said De Villiers on his YouTube channel.
"Later on in the IPL, the last two or three seasons of my career, I realised I had a bit of blurry vision in my right eye. I was testing it on the scoreboard. I was once caught on camera, once, and commentators mentioned that 'he was getting his eye in'. Meanwhile, I wondered why this eye was blurry and the other one was fine. I was putting eye drops in it. When my doctor got the surgery done he 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, My left eye is the dominant eye luckily, but the right eye struggled for the last few years," he added.
Evidence of his superhuman abilities to play cricket despite such a big issue, De Villiers scored 1,209 runs in 43 matches and 41 innings during his last three IPL seasons, at an average of 40.3, with 12 fifties to his name.
In 340 T20s, he has made 9,424 runs at an average of 37.24 at a strike rate of over 150, with four tons and 69 fifties. His best score is 133*. Throughout his IPL career, representing Delhi Capitals (DC) from 2008-2010 and RCB, scoring 5,162 runs in 184 matches at an average of 39.71, with three centuries and 40 fifties to his name. He is the eighth-highest run-getter of all time in IPL history.
De Villiers retired from international cricket in 2018, scoring 19,864 runs in 415 international appearances at an average of 48.33, with 47 centuries and 108 fifties, and his best score being 278*. He is Proteas' second-highest run-getter of all time.