RCB vs LSG: "It Was A Very Competitive Relationship At First That Grew Into A Friendship" - Faf du Plessis On His Bond With AB de Villiers
Published - 08 Apr 2023, 01:47 PM | Updated - 23 Aug 2024, 12:15 AM
The Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) captain Faf du Plessis recalled an interesting story from his childhood involving star batter AB de Villiers. Faf du Plessis says that AB de Villiers was a god-gifted player who grabbed everyone’s attention with his brilliant batting and extraordinary power-hitting abilities.
AB de Villiers and Faf du Plessis were classmates, comrades, and even shared a room at Affies from 1998-2002. AB de Villiers represented the Royal Challengers Bangalore over the decade from 2011 to 2021 and scored 4491 runs in 156 games at an average of 41.20 and a strike rate of 158.64, including two centuries and 37 fifties.
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Speaking on the RCB podcast, Faf du Plessis said that he shared a competitive relationship with AB de Villiers in the early days, which blossomed into a friendship.
“We were rivals in primary school. He was based from the east side of town and I was 13 years old. We went to the same school which is one of the best sporting schools in South Africa,” he said.
“We were like super competitive personalities. It was a very competitive relationship at first that grew into a friendship,” he added.
AB’s Path Was So Different To Mine – Faf du Plessis
Faf du Plessis hailed AB de Villiers as the best player, who had the right people’s attention on him. The RCB captain said that he expected Villiers would play brilliantly and inspire everyone to play for South Africa.
“AB’s path was so different to mine. AB was the best. The right people’s eyes were on him. He would just turn it up and be amazing. He’d pull out this innings and everyone would go wow this guy needs to play for South Africa live,” he added.
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AB de Villiers Was An Exceptional Sportsman – Faf du Plessis
Faf du Plessis revealed that AB de Villiers played multiple sports during his school day but focused only on cricket. The RCB batter said that de Villiers was another lever in the young tournament as he scored centuries with ease.
“At school, he was an exceptional sportsman, naturally gifted at everything so you could do everything and he actually jumped through Hockey and Rugby and Cricket. He was very good at everything.
“It wasn’t quite sure where he was going with which sports and I was so focused on cricket so consistency in cricket became my thing,” he said.
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“AB didn’t really care. He was like I’m just gonna play cricket, I’m just gonna have fun but then during the national week at the end of the season; when we got picked out of all of the different schools as franchises to represent your age group you go to a tournament against all the other states. AB would turn it up to another level and he used to score three hundreds in five games,” he concluded.
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