Virat Kohli calls AB de Villiers the best player in the world
After a match-winning knock of 89 off just 41 balls by South African batsman AB de Villiers against Sunrisers Hyderabad at Chinnaswamy stadium on Sunday, RCB captain Virat Kohli was all praises for his teammate.
“He’s(AB de Villiers) the best player in the world by far. He’s shown it every now and then and it’s a pleasure to watch him play. Today was one of the days where we needed someone to put his hand up and perform and that’s the best knock in a T20 game I’ve ever seen. Chris (Gayle) got a start but the way AB played – he totally took the game away from the opposition,” Kohli said in the post-match presentation.
“We just need to stay in the zone, maintain our composure, maintain our cool and we will get the right result for us.” he added.
When asked to comment on his stunning knock, de Villiers said, “Today was just one of those days for me when things just go your way.”
The contest between Dale Steyn’s bowling and de Villiers’ batting was definitely one to watch. AB enjoyed batting against his South African teammate.
“It’s just like a Tennis match between me and Dale. He won the first set and I won the second set. I would have loved to have another set against him but unfortunately he was bowled out. I thought he bowled exceptionally well in the first over, the second over just went may way,” AB remarked.
Now that the IPL tournament has shifted to India, the teams are excited to play in front of their home crowd.
“We’ve got a wonderful bunch of guys, we’ve got a great team spirit. I was just trying to keep my partner calm. The crowd was unbelievable! I love playing in the Garden City, very friendly people and I am fortunate to have played in front of this crowd for 6 odd years.” the proud AB said.
On the other hand, Sunrisers Hyderabad’s skipper, Shikhar Dhawan was disappointed with the loss. When asked what went wrong, he said, “I think we tried our best. You cannot help it when somebody plays a beautiful knock. We had our chances. The wicket did not play the way it usually plays. We were 10-15 runs short. We started off well as a bowling unit. AB was amazing. Karn Sharma bowled nicely, he got two left-handers out but he missed a half-chance of AB and that proved costly.”