5 Best Moments of AB De Villiers Career
The startling news of AB De Villiers retiring from the international cricket has saddened the cricket fans across the world.
The former South African skipper played 114 tests, 228 one day internationals and 78 T20s and scoring over 20,000 runs across all formats with an average of over 50 in both tests and ODIs.
He was one of the greatest and most versatile batsmen of all times. On his day he had the ability to tore apart the opposition's bowling attack with his wide range of strokes.
It was hoped that he would at least be playing till 2019 world cup given how desirous he was to win a world cup for his country.
De Villiers made his test debut in the home series against England in 2004. He displayed how good a batsman he is by scoring a century in the series. His ODI debut was also against England in 2005.
In his long career of 14 years, he often made everyone speechless with his batting and fielding. Some of the strokes that he played were just jaw-dropping.
He had more than everything one looks for in a batsman.
#1 A record-breaking 149 vs West Indies, Johannesburg, 18 January 2015
It was 39th over of the innings, both the opening batsmen, Amla and Rossouw, had scored centuries and were scoring runs effortlessly but just then Rossouw lost his wicket.
West Indies must have had a moment of relief after breaking the staggering 247 runs partnership but they did not know that an even bigger storm was coming towards them.
De Villiers came in next to bat with the aim of maintaining the run rate but what the world saw in the next 11 overs was incredulous.
In those 11 overs, he not only scored the fastest half-century in 16 balls but also went on to score the fastest century in the history of the game in just 31 balls, that's a strike rate of over 320. The ball was flying all over the ground.
At the end of his innings, he had scored 149 runs off a mere 44 balls and fell short by 1 run of breaking another record of scoring the fastest 150.