The ICC inducted him into the ICC Hall of Fame on Wednesday. In his international career of more than 14 years, AB de Villiers has scored more than 20 thousand runs. Mr. 360 Degree, who plays shots in any corner of the field, is also counted as an excellent fielder. De Villiers, who scored the fastest century in ODI history, has won the ICC Men's ODI Player of the Year award on several occasions and has also been selected in the ICC Test Team of the Year on several occasions. De Villiers is counted among the most explosive batsmen of the game and his dominance was seen in the initial years in the shortest format of the game.
After impressing in his first 16 first-class matches in South Africa, de Villiers received a call up to the South African team. De Villiers started his international career in 2004 with the Test series against England on home soil. Initially De Villiers tried his hand at opening, but later he was sent to bat in the middle order. During this period he also continued playing the role of wicketkeeper.
De Villiers performed brilliantly in his debut series and scored runs at an average of 40.22 in the five-match series. He saved the team from defeat by scoring an unbeaten half-century in the second Test of this series, while in the last match of the series, he scored a century and received the Player of the Match award. De Villiers was not out even once in his first 78 consecutive innings in Test cricket, which is a record in this format.
AB de Villiers showed his aggressive game for the first time in the 2007 ICC Men's Cricket World Cup. When he scored his first ODI century in the Super 8 match against host West Indies. De Villiers continued his brilliant performance in ODIs and became the first African player to score centuries in two consecutive matches in the 2011 World Cup.
In 2011, De Villiers was given the command of South Africa's ODI and T20 team and he won the ODI Player of the Series award against Sri Lanka in his first series as captain. He led the team in the 2015 Cricket World Cup. During this period he had scored 482 runs. The African team had reached the semi-finals during this period. De Villiers scored 162 runs in 66 balls in the match against West Indies and finished the tournament as the number 1 ODI batsman in the ICC rankings.
In Test cricket from 2008 to 2016, De Villiers scored 6001 runs at an average of 58.26. During this period he scored 18 centuries. In the match against Pakistan in 2013, he took 11 wickets behind the wicket and also scored a century. De Villiers became the first batsman in Test cricket to score a century and take 10 dismissals.
De Villiers also led the African team in Tests for some time in 2016. During this time, he scored a half-century in 21 balls against England, which was the fastest half-century made by a South African player at that time and a year later, in the last phase of his career, he scored 176 (104) runs against Bangladesh in Paarl. Had played a stormy innings.
At the time of his retirement from international cricket in 2018, De Villiers had a batting average of over 50 in both Test and ODI cricket. De Villiers scored 20 thousand runs in his international career and is the highest run scorer for the African team after Jacques Kallis' 20,014 international runs.
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