South Africa batting genius AB de Villiers announced his retirement from all forms of cricket on November 19, 2021. He was one of the pioneers of T20 cricket and had been involved in franchise leagues after his international cricket retirement in 2018.
The 37-year-old continued to ply his trade in T20 leagues around the world - at the BBL, the PSL, the Vitality Blast, the BPL, and the MSL back home - following his international retirement, but the majority of his time was spent in the IPL, where he played for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) since 2011.
AB de Villiers played 157 matches for RCB and scored 4522 runs at a strike rate of 158.33. He is also the franchise's second-highest run-scorer of all time, behind Virat Kohli.
"This hurts my heart," Kohli shares emotional post on De Villiers' retirement
De Villiers’ association with Virat Kohli and the RCB and his general disposition of friendliness made him an instant hit with the Indian fans and even De Villiers considered himself half-Indian.
Today as he bids the game a final goodbye and many realize that they will never get to see the De Villiers magic with the bat on the field, not only fans but members of the Indian cricket fraternity took to Twitter to pay their tributes to the genius of AB de Villiers.
Here are the tweets:
