Former South Africa captain AB de Villiers’ international comeback has become a much-discussed topic primarily because of the 36-year old’s early retirement, unmatched skill and plentiful fan-following.
De Villiers’ form in the 13th season of the Indian Premier League was bound to be observed closely by Cricket South Africa but the novel COVID-19 pandemic has spoken of the otherwise.
A recent interview doing the rounds in the Indian media claimed that CSA had offered de Villiers to lead South Africa in T20Is with two upcoming ICC T20 World Cups in mind.
“The desire is there from my side to play for South Africa, and have been asked by Cricket South Africa to lead the Proteas again. The most important thing to me is that I have got to be in top form, and I have got to be better than the player next to me.
“If I feel I deserve my spot in the side, it becomes much easier for me to feel that I should be part of the playing XI.I have not been part of the Proteas for a while, and I feel that it’s important for myself and for other people to see that I am still good enough to be there,” de Villiers was quoted as saying on Star Sports Cricket Connected according to the reports.
Did CSA offer AB de Villiers to lead South Africa?
Former South Africa captain Graeme Smith, who had recently been named as Director of Cricket at Cricket South Africa, had opined against handing the Test captaincy to newly-elected limited-overs captain Quinton de Kock in a bid to not burden him with three jobs in as many formats.
Going by Smith’s comments, there was a doubt from the starting regarding de Villiers’ reported statement with respect to CSA offering him the captaincy. de Villiers himself took to social media platform to quash all such reports of being offered leadership.
Apart from de Villiers, Smith also took to the same platform to aware the cricket fraternity regarding the “fake news” spreading all over the globe.
Reports suggesting Cricket SA have asked me to lead the Proteas are just not true. It’s hard to know what to believe these days. Crazy times. Stay safe everyone.
— AB de Villiers (@ABdeVilliers17) April 29, 2020
Sorry this is absolute #FakeNews https://t.co/zaasJprRGf
— Graeme Smith (@GraemeSmith49) April 29, 2020
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