People celebrating Impact Player rule to prolong career, I can never carry on like that: AB de Villiers

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South Africa and RCB great AB de Villiers has said that his decision to retire from all forms of cricket was a deliberate one as he felt he did not have the urge to be the best in the world.

The 39-year-old retired from all forms of cricket after the IPL 2021. The former South Africa captain had announced his retirement from international cricket way back in May 2018.

Talking on the JioCinema show 'Home of Heroes’, De Villiers said that he could still play a few blinders and stretch his careers like others with the 'Impact Player' rule coming in the picture before adding that his conscience would never allow him to do that.

He said being the best in the world when playing was his motto from the start of his career and playing a match as an 'Impact Player' or playing just a couple of months of franchise cricket won't help him achieve that standard where he could compete against the likes of Virat Kohli and Suryakumar Yadav.

AB de Villiers reckoned that lack of motivation and international cricket slowly diminished his competitive attitude.

"Definitely. I could still play. But the drive is not there anymore. From a young age. It’s always just about being the best. I want to be the best if I come back and I’ll want to compete with Surya and Kohli and I just felt the last four years of my career not playing international cricket. I definitely didn’t play enough cricket towards the back end of my career. I think that was the main thing," de Villiers told Jio Cinema.

"With this Impact Player I know a lot of people are celebrating at, it’s going to lengthen the careers of players. To me, I could never do that. I could never just play two or three months of the year because I want to be the best in the world, and you can’t do that if you play for three months of the years. Absolutely no chance. Yes. You can practice for nine months.

"But nothing, nothing compares with middle practice with being out there and competition. So, with the minute that fire went off being the best in the world, I felt like, what? What am I doing? So, what exactly is going on now? So was tough the last few years in that regard as well. I felt like, you know what, I can still have my super knock here and there, but I don’t want to do that. I want to be the best," he added.