AB de Villiers picks himself in all-time IPL XI, prefers MS Dhoni over Virat Kohli to lead

Former South African cricket captain AB de Villiers has been one of the best batsmen to play in the IPL over the years. Having played for Delhi Capitals and currently for RCB, de Villiers has developed a reputation as a destructive 360-degree cricketer, capable of hitting shots all over the field. Recently, AB de Villiers picked up his all-time IPL XI while appearing on the Cricbuzz in Conversation show with famous sports presenter Harsha Bhogle.

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AB de Villiers' all-time IPL XI has himself but no David Warner or Dale Steyn

During the show, when AB de Villiers was asked to pick his all-time IPL XI, the South African batsman made some interesting decision. AB de Villiers picked 7 Indians in his all-time IPL XI. The South African revealed that MS Dhoni will be the captain of his team. The player selected MS Dhoni as captain over his present RCB teammate and captain Virat Kohli.

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For the opening pair, de Villiers picked Indian batting duo Virender Sehwag and Rohit Sharma. While AB de Villiers had played with Sehwag during his time at Delhi, he picked Rohit Sharma as he believed Rohit to be the best batsman over the last five years. While the duo is deadly in any format of the game, their selection came ahead of the likes of David Warner, who is the most successful overseas batsman in the IPL, winning the league title in 2016 as captain of SRH.

For the No.3 and No.4 slots, AB de Villiers picked RCB teammate Virat Kohli and himself respectively. The RCB duo has developed a strong partnership over the years. Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers have developed to be the most important players for RCB. Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers have stitched together several memorable partnerships for RCB in the IPL over the years. The duo are the only two players with two 200+ partnerships in T20s.

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In the middle order, the RCB player picked MS Dhoni, Ravindra Jadeja and England all-rounder, Ben Stokes. For the bowling places, AB de Villiers went in with a combination of 3 pacers and a spinner. De Villiers chose the Indian pace duo of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah, with South African teammate Kagiso Rabada taking up the third slot. The spinner in the team chosen by AB de Villiers was Rashid Khan from Afghanistan.

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Talking about who will captain his team, the RCB player said that while he will pick MS Dhoni as captain since he and RCB teammate Virat Kohli can sort out the leadership of the team together. While picking the team, South African made several interesting choices. The player’s all-time IPL XI had no place for the tournament’s leading run-scorer, David Warner while leaving out South African teammate Dale Steyn as well. Steyn is said to have the seventh best economy rate in the history of the competition at 6.76, playing 96 matches and was successful in most of them. Many fans lauded the battle between Steyn and de Villiers whenever they faced off, although de Villiers came out on top on all the instances.

Image Courtesy: icc-cricket.com