Cricket South Africa (CSA) Director of Cricket Graeme Smith has on Friday (January 24) claimed that the doors are still open for AB de Villiers to come back into the scheme of things after the batting legend expressed his desire to come out of his international retirement.
Earlier this January, former South Africa captain has stated that he wants to return to national set-up and even he is in talks with the CSA and team management over his return to T20I squad ahead of the upcoming T20 World Cup 2020 in Australia.
De Villiers, who retired from international cricket in 2018, is currently played in the ongoing 9th edition of the Big Bash League (BBL) 2019-20 for Brisbane Heat in Australia.
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With South Africa and captain Faf Du Plessis keen in having De Villiers back in the team, Smith said they are still considering the feasibility and options and discussing his return behind the scenes but hasn’t firmly suggested when he would return to the national squad.
Smith was quoted as saying by timeslive.co.za, “I think it is great that AB has expressed his desire to be back in the system. Those chats (with De Villiers) aren’t formal but we are looking at options around the T20 World Cup.”
The CSA chief also revealed that De Villiers’ potential inclusion would be part of a wider strategy, adding: “We would be stupid not to look at the free agents who play in most T20 around the world. The West Indies have had success with some of those guys.”
He signed off by saying, “We are looking at when those players who want to be part of that World Cup need to be part of the set-up. Post Indian Premier League we’ve got 11 to 14 T20 games before the World Cup. We’ve got a lot of cricket to build a squad.”
(With timeslive.co.za Inputs)
