The legendary South African batsman AB de Villiers surprised everyone by taking a sudden retirement. The news of his retirement in international cricket spread like fire. AB de Villiers’s fans all over the world were very disappointed by this decision. De Villiers never spoke openly about this decision.

During a recent interview, de Villiers told that the 2015 World Cup semi-final defeat broke him from the inside. Due to this defeat from New Zealand, de Villiers was broken for almost a year. This defeat played a big role in his retirement.

In this semi-final match of the 2015 Cricket World Cup, South Africa lost by 4 wickets against New Zealand on the basis of Duckworth-Lewis method. De Villiers could not bear the brunt of this defeat. After the match was over, de Villiers and many other South African players had tears in their eyes. From this, it can be guessed how important this match was for them.

De Villiers told Harsha Bhogle during 'Cricbuzz in Conversation', ‘It broke me but I kept playing, I tried everything possible, tried to stay connected with cricket. I was batting very well. I still have great memories. '

De Villiers said, ‘From a personal perspective, yes, it played a big role. We lost the game that night and that year it was difficult for me to recover from that defeat but we had to start again but my situation was such that wait, I have not recovered from this World Cup defeat so far. This caused a lot of pain. So yes, I am very sensitive and these kinds of things play a big role in how I feel. '

De Villiers played 114 Tests and 228 ODIs in his international cricket career, in which he scored 8765 and 9577 runs respectively. Apart from this, he scored 1672 runs in 78 T20 Internationals.

Let us know that De Villiers, considered one of the best batsmen of all time, gave up his 14-year international career in 2018 when he was at the top of his game. De Villiers at the time, stating the reason for his retirement, said that he no longer has the strength and is feeling tired.