Faf du Plessis, the newly-appointed captain of IPL franchise Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), stated that "no cricketer in the world" can "fill in" AB de Villiers' shoes.
In IPL 2022, RCB will be without AB de Villiers, as the legendary South African cricketer announced his retirement from all forms of the game last November, just before the IPL 2022 player retention.
"It's huge shoes to fill in. There is no cricketer in the world that will try to fill in AB's shoes. Those shoes are too big. I've got big feet but they're never going to match AB's feat. I wouldn't even try, he's an absolute great of the game," Du Plessis said of his former South African teammate.
In addition to his impressive total of 20,014 international runs, De Villiers holds the ODI records for the fastest fifty, century, and 150 runs.
"He mentioned throughout his career that it'd be nice if I could join him yet RCB so the timing is obviously not great now that he has decided to retire and also retired three years ago in International cricket. Unfortunately, we won't be playing together. But it's nice that one friend replaces another. And there's something nice to that story," he added.
De Villiers managed to score 4491 runs for RCB in 156 matches, with an incredible average of 41.20 and strike rate of 158.63. Du Plessis will lead Royal Challengers Bangalore, which includes Virat Kohli, Glenn Maxwell, Dinesh Karthik, Mohammed Siraj, and Josh Hazlewood amongst others.
On March 27, RCB will play Punjab Kings in their first match.
(With PTI Inputs)
