Bad News For Pakistan As AB de Villiers Pick His Four Semifinalists For ICC World Cup 2023

Former South Africa captain AB de Villiers has picked his semifinalists for the upcoming ICC World Cup 2023. The highly-anticipated tournament is scheduled to be played from October 5 to November 19 in India.

A total of ten teams will be participating in the 13th edition of the ODI World Cup. The competition will see a total of 48 games being played over 46 days. Each team will play against the other nine teams once during the league stage. The top four teams will then make it to the semifinals.

The first game of the World Cup is scheduled to take place between reigning champions England and New Zealand at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on October 5. The final will also be played at the same venue. The matches will be played across ten venues as India gears up to host the ODI World Cup alone for the first time.

AB de Villiers’ semifinalists for ICC World Cup 2023:

With less than two months remaining in the World Cup to get underway, the cricket fraternity has started predicting the teams’ fate in the competition. And AB de Villiers has joined the bandwagon too as the former cricketer revealed the name of the four teams who can make it to the semifinal, according to him. AB de Villiers made the revelation during a Q&A session on his YouTube channel.

He picked India, Australia, England, and South Africa as the four semifinalists as he snubbed the likes of New Zealand and Pakistan. He even stated that India have the potential to go all the way in the upcoming ODI World Cup. AB de Villiers admitted that Pakistan have a good chance to progress ahead of the league stage but still picked the Proteas as the fourth semifinalists.

“Definitely, India. I think they will go on to win it over there again. It’s going to be a fairytale World Cup. India, England, and Australia — got to go with the big three.

“Then I want to go with South Africa, even though Pakistan has a really good chance as well. So the fourth team will be South Africa. I’ve gone with three non-sub-continent teams there, which is very risky. But I am going to stick to it because I think the wickets will be good. I don’t think the World Cup is going to see bad wickets during the duration of the tournament,” said AB de Villiers.

Speaking further, AB de Villiers predicted a final between defending champions England and hosts India. He also said that having less pressure could do wonders for the South African team in the upcoming tournament.

“England and India in the final. If they can find each other in that final, I think that will be fantastic, even though I really want my South African boys to be there.

“I don’t think it’s going to be easy for them, but never say never. This is the World Cup in which there are the least expectations from South Africa, and that might boast well for them. They are a very talented and a very underrated team,” he said.