“I still believe that I have a role to play in SA cricket and in IPL with RCB,” says AB de Villiers

Former South African legend AB de Villiers, who retired from all forms of the game in November 2021, hopes to play a key role in the future setups of both his country’s national team and his Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Royal Challengers Bangalore.

“I still believe that I have a role to play in South Africa cricket and also over there in the IPL with the Royal Challengers Bangalore. I have no idea what will come next, but I will take it one day at a time and see.” Times LIVE cited him as stating.

“No one knows about it and hopefully I can look back one day in the future knowing that I have made a big difference in the lives of a few players. That is my focus for now and I don’t know if it’s going to be professional or on a casual basis, but we will see where we go with that,” he added.

De Villiers also discussed the problems he encountered as a professional, as well as the last several years, which have seen the coronavirus epidemic alter the worldwide landscape.

“Having to go to the IPL twice last year where we had to deal with a lot of travelling restrictions, COVID-19 testing, missed and cancelled flights, and having to organize a school for the kids was very challenging.” He commented on COVID-19’s impact.

“I decided over the past few years that I am not going to travel without my kids anymore and the split IPL really made it very complicated. Probably the biggest challenge was to stay sane, motivated, and keep the energy,” he open about his decision.

“I also picked up COVID-19 at some stage and I was really sick for 10 to 12 days and luckily I got through it. Those were the challenges and there were basic stresses of life with the pandemic floating around.” He added.