'I Could Still Play, Want to be the Best, But...': Here's Why AB de Villiers Doesn't Want to Return to IPL

Former South African skipper AB de Villiers may have switched his profession from an international cricketer to a broadcaster, but his fans still wish to see him on the field smashing the balls out of the park. After drawing curtains on his international career in 2018, he continued his IPL stint with Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) till 2021.

Fondly known as ‘Mr 360’, De Villiers represented South Africa in 114 Tests and 228 ODIs, scoring 8765 and 9577 runs respectively. He played 184 games in the IPL and scored 5162 runs, including three centuries and 40 half-centuries.

De Villiers, in a recent interaction with news agency IANS, said he could still play the game and will also be fighting to be the best.

“Definitely. I could still play. But the drive is not there anymore. It’s always just about being the best. I want to be the best if I come back and I’ll want to compete with Surya and Kohli,” De Villiers told IANS.

The former Proteas star further opened up about why he gave up playing IPL despite performing well for the franchise. He said the recently-introduced impact player rule may help the outgoing players elongate their careers but he can’t do that because he doesn’t want to play only for a couple of months in the entire calendar year.

“I definitely didn’t play enough cricket towards the back end of my career. I think that was the main thing. With this Impact Player I know a lot of people are celebrating it, it’s going to lengthen the careers of players. To me, I could never do that. I could never just play two or three months of the year because I want to be the best in the world, and you can’t do that if you play for three months of the year. Absolutely no chance,” De Villiers said.

“Yes, you can practice for nine months. But nothing, nothing compares middle practice with being out there and competing. So, the minute that fire went off being the best in the world, I felt like, what? What am I doing? So, what exactly is going on now? So was tough the last few years in that regard as well. I felt like, you know what, I can still have my super knock here and there, but I don’t want to do that. I want to be the best,” he added.