Impact Of AB's Retirement

You know how you see a news piece on the internet that breaks your heart and you confirm it on 100 other websites. Wednesday afternoon was one such day. All of us casually picked up our smartphones and opened our social media profiles to see the news of AB De Villiers’ retirement.

Whenever a legend leaves the game, it creates a void in his team. Every great player has always been irreplaceable to some extent.

With AB gone, it has created a void of a proper middle order/ top order batsman who can also bat to play out overs without giving away his wicket scoring 43 runs off 354 balls, and also score 100 in 31 balls if required. That man could just bat anywhere!!

Also, he was a terrific fielder and one of the coolest minds in the South African dressing room. With just a year to the World Cup, South Africa need to find replacements. When it comes to replacing AB, they need someone who can control the innings, bat to the end and also finish the innings with a few big hits like AB did.

However, experience can never be replaced. AB's aura in the dressing room which gives youngsters confidence will be missing. A player like AB putting his arm around a youngster's shoulder is more than enough to take the pressure off them.

So now it leaves South Africa in utter confusion. Do they now play with two more batsmen, one at no.4 and the other lower down the order to play the two roles that AB did, or do they go with a middle order batsman and trust the other batsman to finish the innings.

Playing 2 batsmen might leave them with only 4 specialist bowling options, which may not be enough in England for the 2019 World Cup. So that is a big reason to worry about, and AB not being in the WC squad will push South Africa on the backfoot.

So expect South Africa to try and test a few players this year in search of a batsman. Having said that, I honestly feel AB is irreplaceable and should've at least played the World Cup. But as he said, “I felt tired and running out of gas.”

So congratulations AB on a wonderful career, and South Africa, they have a job on their hands!!!

We will miss him