South African head coach Mark Boucher, in a recent interaction, kept the doors open for their ace batsman AB de Villiers’ international return.
De Villiers abruptly called it quits from the game internationally and, since then, featured only in T20 leagues around the world, namely, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and West Indies.
However, ‘Mr. 360’ kept himself in contention for the T20 World Cup in October, scheduled to be held in Australia.
AB kept himself busy by featuring in the Big Bash League (BBL) for Brisbane Heat. Further, De Villiers will come back in the IPL and put on the red and blacks of Royal Challengers Bangalore in the forthcoming edition.
The former Protea wicketkeeper-batsman remained adamant about their motto of sending their best team to Australia, to compete for the event.
“If we are going to a World Cup, I would like to have our best players there,” Boucher told the media recently.
“If AB is in good form and he is raring to go, and he makes himself available for the time we have asked him to be available; if he is the best man for the job, then he must go. It’s not about egos or anything like that. It’s about sending your best team to the World Cup to try and win that competition,” quoted Boucher, according to SA Cricket Magazine.
Under the new directorship of Graeme Smith, South African Cricket is keen to witness a regime shift. Although the South African team’s result remains undesirable, Boucher appears optimistic about the future.
The South African team lost the four-match Test series by a margin of 3-1 against England. Also, they lost a hard-fought T20I series by 2-1 and drew 1-all in the ODI series, with a match being washed-out.
“I knew it was going to be tough. I don’t want to get emotional about the whole thing. You’ve got to try and be practical and look at where we are as a team and understand that there is a lot of hard work to do,” Boucher rued, post series loss to England.
