Retirement days are always hard. Not just for a sportsperson, but for fans, teammates and others. And when the retirement is that of a superstar, then you can multiply the emotions by a few times.
One such superstar who goes by the name of AB de Villiers decided to hang his boots on Friday. It was a decision which triggered emotions, even though the South African has played sparsely since announcing his international retirement in 2018.
Post retiring from South African colours, de Villiers played predominantly in the IPL. Yet, for the couple of seasons that he did wear the red and gold, some of his exploits was truly mesmerising. The hitting range, the audacity, the sheer destruction from a cricketer who was not playing frequently boggled the mind more than once.
Every IPL team has its own set of important players. RCB, in the initial years, had Chris Gayle and Virat Kohli with de Villiers as the troika who took the team forward.
Gayle left in 2018 and since then, many might say that de Villiers became a bigger match-winner than Kohli in the last three seasons. With a muddle over his batting position and a decreasing strike-rate as the innings progressed , the IPL has not been able to see the best of Kohli in the last few years. In that period, de Villiers has upped his game and won matches for the franchise and done that without playing international cricket.
But, all good things must come to an end and for the first time in the second phase of IPL 2021, one saw de Villiers not quite deliver to the levels one hoped from him. Whether it was the presence of Glenn Maxwell, who was the team’s MVP or the surprise performances from KS Bharat, who knows, but de Villiers could not get going as well as he would have liked and with the big auction coming up soon and with him on the wrong side of the 30s, perhaps he felt the time was right to bring the curtains down.
The IPL will miss him. The Chinnaswamy will not chant his name and who knows, when they will get to chant anyone’s name with the same passion, same vigor. A bit of the buzz has come down with de Villiers moving on and dare I say, a bit of color has left the rainbow.
