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'If I want to come back...': De Villiers namedrops Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav in epic 'I could still play' revelation
AB de Villiers has confessed that he is still pretty capable of playing at the highest level but won't put himself through the grind due to the lack of drive.
He may be 39 years old and retired but many believe that AB de Villiers can still ace T20 cricket if he decides to return for one more season of the IPL. Four years after calling time on his international career, de Villiers bid adieu to Royal Challengers Bangalore ahead of last year's IPL. Few months after his announcement, de Villiers revealed that he underwent an eye surgery, ruling out every possibility of a potential comeback if there ever was any. Still, there is a huge chunk of fans who feel, well… never say never, and have been clamouring for an ABD return – albeit briefly.
Now, in a startling revelation, de Villiers has confessed that he is still pretty capable of playing at the highest level but won't put himself through the grind for a simple reason: He has not left in the tank. The fire in his belly has extinguished. De Villiers has set the bar so high that if he were to return, he would want to be on par with the best, and for that, the effort needed is not something ABD can go through.
"Definitely. I could still play. But the drive is not there anymore. Robbie, from a young age. 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 (Surykumar Yadav) and (Virat) Kohli and I just felt the last four years of my career not playing international cricket. 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 at, it’s going to lengthen the careers of players. To me, I could never do that," De Villiers said on the show 'Home of Heroes' on Jio Cinema.
Many reckon de Villiers can possibly follow the MS Dhoni route – rest nine months a year, train for the remaining three and turn up. But for ABD, it just doesn't work that way. Everyone has their own unique way and methods, and even by de Villiers's superhuman characteristics, it's not feasible enough to think of a comeback.
"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 years. Absolutely no chance. Yes. You can practice for nine months. But nothing, nothing compares with middle practice with being out there and competition. So, with 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.
