Who do you think is the Indian Premier League‘s greatest batsman of all time? MS Dhoni? Virat Kohli? Suresh Raina?
Well, the prize for the greatest batsman of the world’s richest cricket league goes to none other than RCB southpaw AB de Villiers. The South African cricketer has been named as the greatest of all in IPL’s 12-year history by a panel of experts.
AB de’s intention for T20 world cup
De Villiers captained South Africa in all three formats, although after a series of injuries he stepped down from the Test captaincy. In 2017 he stepped down from captaining the national limited-overs teams and in May 2018 announced his retirement from all forms of international cricket.
However, in January 2020 De Villiers expressed his intention to make an international comeback and play for South Africa in the 2020 T20 World Cup.
He gets his last chance to get in to the International team for the last time. South Africa’s head coach Mark Boucher has given AB De Villiers a deadline of June 1 to make himself available for the selection. Where he could make his international return for the Proteas lineup against Sri Lanka this year.
He expect to attend the “selection” after IPL 2020, but the BCCI postponed the cash rich tournament to the mid of April. Due to the rapid spread of corona virus BCCI took this decision.
Best batsman in IPL too
With his unorthodox technique and shot selections, De Villiers has been widely likened to be amongst the greatest batsmen of his generation.
Although he announced his international retirement in 2019, De Villiers continues to play franchise cricket across the world and remains an integral part of Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) of IPL.
Our very own Mr. 3️⃣6️⃣0️⃣ was voted as the greatest IPL batsman of all time by a panel of experts on @StarSportsIndia Cricket Connected and we couldn’t agree more!🤩
Drop a 👏 to congratulate the GOAT, AB!#PlayBold pic.twitter.com/HIPs0vjxPq
— Royal Challengers Bangalore (@RCBTweets) April 20, 2020
He has featured in every IPL season ever since its inception in 2008 and has gone on to represent two franchises. The South African superstar started his career with Delhi Daredevils before permanently shifting base to RCB.
In the 154 IPL matches that he has played, De Villiers has hit 4395 runs including 3 centuries and 33 half-centuries. He remains one of the main pillars in the batting department at RCB, where he has formed an explosive batting partnership with skipper Virat Kohli.
The duo has put up two 200+ and 5 100+ batting partnerships, turning RCB into among the most feared batting lineups.
AB de Villiers was selected by an experts’ panel on Star Sports’ Cricket Connected over the likes of Kohli, David Warner, Chris Gayle, MS Dhoni, Virender Sehwag, Kieron Pollard, Suresh Raina, and Shane Watson.
Along with Graeme Smith, Tom Moody, Danny Morrison, Alan Wilkins, Ian Bishop, Mike Hesson and Darren Ganga voted for De Villiers or Mr. 360.
“Mr. 360. If I look at that list, I’m going to go with AB de Villiers. Mr. 360, because I have seen him score all around the park, all over the IPL,” said Danny Morrison.
The jury that elected De Villiers was made of 50 members including former cricketers (20), statisticians and analysts (10), senior sports journalists (10), broadcasters (7) and anchors (3).
