Former South Africa batter AB de Villiers is undoubtedly one of the finest cricketers in the history of the sport. Making his international debut in 2004, de Villiers went on to play 114 Tests, 228 ODIs, and 78 T20Is, scoring 20014 runs for the Proteas. Apart from this, the wicketkeeper-batter is widely popular for his heroics in the IPL for Royal Challengers Bangalore. De Villiers, who is known by the nickname of ‘Mr 360’, announced his retirement from international in 2018 and later called time on his IPL career in 2021.
However, in a recent interaction with Wisden Cricket, de Villiers revealed the details of an injury that affected his vision. He stated that his son had accidentally kicked him in the eye, which declined his vision.
“My youngster accidentally kicked me on my eye with his heel. I started really losing vision in the right eye. When I got the surgery done the doctor actually asked me, ‘How in the world did you play cricket like this?’. Luckily my left eye did a decent job for the last two years of my career,” de Villiers told Wisden Cricket.
In another video, AB de Villiers mentioned how he had a blurry vision in his right eye after that injury. he went on to say that during the IPL, he would often look at the scoreboard to test his eyesight.
Playing Cricket with an Eye Injury | 360 Live Q&A https://t.co/qcR05j038d
— AB de Villiers (@ABdeVilliers17) December 8, 2023
The former RCB star further stated that South Africa’s defeat against New Zealand in the semi-final of 2015 ODI World Cup, left a deep impact on him. He also opened up about the challenges that he faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Covid certainly played a role, there’s no doubt about it. From an international perspective, that 2015 World Cup hurt big time. It took me a while to get over that and then, when I got back into the side and I was ready to commit, I didn’t feel the same culture that I really needed at that time,” said de Villiers.
“I often found myself thinking, I don’t know, eh? Could this be the end of my career? I didn’t even really want to play IPL or anything else. I got away from everything in 2018 and then decided to push one more time with a bit of Test cricket, to try and beat India and Australia over here, and then I’ll call it. I didn’t want any spotlight on me. I just wanted to say, ‘I had a great time, thank you very much’,” he added.
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