Faf du Plessis 'very keen' to have AB de Villiers back for South Africa

AB de Villiers, also known as Mr. 360, played his last international game for the Proteas in 2018 and ever since, he has kept himself busy by playing in T20 leagues all over the world. However, de Villiers recently hinted about a return back to international cricket ahead of the T20 World Cup in Australia later this year.

Just before the 2019 World Cup, there were reports of a rift between South African skipper Faf du Plessis and de Villiers, as the latter reportedly made himself available for the squad but was not selected. However, all those reports seem to be untrue, as du Plessis stressed on how keen he was on bringing de Villiers back.

“We spoke and I was very keen to have him (de Villiers) back even before the new coaching staff was on board,” du Plessis was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times.

“He’s keen to come back. I don’t know when," du Plessis further added.

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Du Plessis wants to build a team and take some sort of momentum into the T20 World Cup and not make any last moment changes - something that happened before the 2019 World Cup. Thus he is hoping that de Villiers would join the squad sooner.

“In an ideal world, we would like to make sure we can play our best 11, 12, 13 players for a few games or in a few series leading up to a T20 World Cup.” Du Plessis said he did not want a repeat of what he said happened ahead of last year’s 50-overs World Cup when combinations were not settled before the tournament," du Plessis asserted.

“There was a search to find the players and the combinations. I would like to settle into that combination a little earlier so the guys can play as many games as possible together,” he added.