Brian Lara doesn’t think that RCB should retain AB de Villiers, given the fact that he doesn’t play any cricket around the world for a full-year and then plays IPL straightaway which is not easy.
According to Lara, three players that RCB should retain are Glenn Maxwell, Virat Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal. Lara insists that Maxwell this season did everything that RCB asked from him and Virat Kohli is the biggest player of the franchise, so those two are straightforward retentions. For the third retention, Devdutt Padikkal can be one of the options because he is a young player and can play for the franchise for many years to come.
AB de Villiers struggled in the second leg of IPL 2021 in the UAE
AB de Villiers didn’t have a great IPL this time around in the second half. He still won some games for RCB in the first half in India, but in the second half, he struggled and one of the reasons might be that he was given a tougher role by the franchise for the second leg. His job was to bat at no. 5 and no. 6 and finish the innings which is not an easy job.
In a recent interview of Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers, they reiterated that they will play for the franchise for some time, but in Lara’s opinion, De Villiers doesn’t make the cut as far as retention is concerned this time around.
“Why would you want to retain AB de Villiers when he is not scoring runs and not getting any younger. You’re playing six weeks of cricket for the entire year and if you think he is going to be ready every time the IPL comes around, then do it but we have seen the situation with Chris Gayle at 42. And he plays leagues after leagues all the year and still he struggles,” Lara was quoted as saying by cricket.com.
De Villiers is arguably the greatest ever overseas batsman in the history of the IPL as he has won a number of games for RCB from extremely tricky situations in the past. This is probably the first IPL season where De Villiers has looked rusty for a series of games. Not playing any cricket in the gap between the first and the second leg of the IPL might have been the reason behind it.
