AB De Villiers has a lot of time for Virat Kohli and even rates him as the best batsman in the world but not even Kohli can get the former to don the wicketkeeping gloves again
AB De Villiers
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AB De Villiers
Bangalore: AB De Villiers has a lot of time for Virat Kohli and even rates him as the best batsman in the world but not even Kohli can get the former to don the wicketkeeping gloves again. Afflicted with shoulder and elbow injuries he may be but it's a bad back, something he has suffered from for many years now, that is De Villiers' main worry and the reason he won't be 'keeping anytime soon, if at all, either for club or country.
"I'll miss the next five years if I start 'keeping again. My back won't allow that. My back is sore because of all those years of 'keeping," De Villiers told a select media here during the launch of his personalised fan engagement app, AB17.
Still not 100 per cent fit
Asked if he would play RCB's second game coming up at the Chinnaswamy Stadium on Saturday, De Villiers said: "I'm going to test it (his fitness) out this afternoon. We've got a nets session. I'll hit a couple of balls, see what it feels like and then we'll make a call."
Going by how the opening match went for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and given that Kohli is still not fit, there is a lot riding on De Villiers passing the fitness test.
"Look, last night's game (the opener in Hyderabad on Wednesday) was always going to be difficult being the first game of the season. The team that played the final last year and the team that played last night I think there were about five or six changes. So it was always going to be difficult to hit the ground running without Virat, myself, and KL Rahul, leaders in their own right.
Didn't get our basics right
"But I have never doubted the skill and the talent of the team.I think we let ourselves down with tiny little basics in the field. If we had hung onto the catches, and stopped some of the fumbles, they would have got around 180, which would have been a very chaseable total," said the South African.
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