Former South African cricketer AB de Villiers announced retirement from the Indian Premier League (IPL) last year after being associated with the tournament since its inception in 2008. He had featured in every IPL season till 2021 playing for the Delhi Capitals (Delhi Daredevils) in the first three seasons and for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) thereafter. The South African batter is known to be sharing a special bond with ex- RCB skipper Virat Kohli both on and off the field. As RCB plays its first season after AB, Virat recalled the day when the South African informed him about the retirement decision before officially announcing it.
Speaking in a video shared by the franchise on social media, the former Indian skipper said that he received the news through a voice message while coming back from Dubai after T20 World Cup. Virat listened to it and showed it to his wife Anushka Sharma who almost had an intuition about what was coming up. “Anushka was with me, and I looked at her like this. The first thing she said was, ‘Don’t tell me.’ She knew,” he said.
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Virat added that he also had hints about the possibility of AB’s retirement. He said that AB kept asking him out for a coffee last year and it kind of madehim nervous about what was coming. “I kept getting nervous, I was like I am not sitting with you, I think there’s something coming,” he said.
RCB began their IPL 15 campaign with a defeat by the hands of Mayank Agarwal led Punjab Kings on March 27. Despite setting a mammoth target of 206 runs batting first, the Bengaluru based franchise failed to put the Punjab batters under pressure. PBKS chased the total down in 19 overs with five wickets in hand
RCB’s newly appointed skipper Faf du Plessis emerged as the highest scorer of the match scoring 88 runs off the 57 balls he paced. Virat played an unbeaten knock of 41 runs off 29 deliveries.
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