AB de Villiers: Mr 360 degree and his cricketing career

Abraham Benjamin de Villiers or famously known as AB de Villiers, is South Africa's gem batsman with enviable wicketkeeping skills.

The cricketing legend debuted in late 2004 against a visiting England, partnering Graeme Smith as an opener.

In his second Test in the same series, he was given the responsibility of wicket-keeping as a stand-in for the injured Mark Boucher.

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The duties led to a demotion in his batting line to the lower order. However, the experiment worked well, yielding a fifty on debut, in the second innings of the Test.

De Villiers announced his arrival with scores of 92 and 109 while opening the innings, in the last of the 5-Test series

In ODIs though, it took a while for him to find his footing, recording his first half-century in his 15th attempt, against Australia.

He was one of South Africa's most consistent performers in all formats. He was one of those players, who had no qualms in being deployed as an opener, middle or lower order batsman, depending on the situation.

The ability to offer dead bats, drives, flicks and pulls and his instinctive nature to innovate in manners, turned de Villiers into one of the most dangerous cricketers.

He has played 228 games and has smashed 9577 runs at an average of 53.5. His highest individual score is 176 runs.

As an accomplished gloveman, he was often called to deputize for Boucher, and with time he was even being touted as his eventual successor.

De Villiers' presence in the batting line up was important in South Africa's return to the pinnacle of cricket, registering historic wins in Australia and going on a 3-year unbeaten run since 2007.

He helped South Africa to a semi-final berth in the 2007 ICC Cricket World World Cup, restoring respectability after a poor showing in the tournament's previous edition.

If we see the T20I format, then the cricket legend has 1672 runs in his kitty of just 78 game played.

Consistent performances over the years gave the Proteas a new ODI captain in de Villiers, when he replaced Graeme Smith in 2011, post the ICC Cricket World Cup.

After proving his class in the Test arena, he was the number one batsman in ODIs as well as in Tests on a number of occasions.

De Villiers has played 114 Tests and has scored 8765 runs at an average of 50.66, with unbeaten 278 being his highest score.

De Villiers was a hot-buy in the Indian T20 League and he started off representing Delhi until he moved to Bangalore for the later seasons.

AB was also one of the players to have been retained by Bangalore in 2014.

In 141 games in the Indian Premier League, since its inception in 2008, De Villiers has made 3953 runs in 141 matches. He has smashed three centuries and 28 half-centuries.

In 2018, he played 12 games for the Virat kohli-led side and scored 480 runs which include six half-centuries.

Though Bangalore failed to make it to the play-offs, De Villiers left an impression that there is still a lot of cricket left in him.

But, the South African star today announced retirement from all forms of cricket with immediate effect.

While some fans raised serious doubts over his retirement decision many wished him luck for his future plans.