De Villiers pulls out of NZ series, fuels Test retirement speculation

Fuelling talk that he might call it a day in Test cricket, South African star batsman AB de Villiers pulled out of the upcoming series in New Zealand in March, although saying this was not a retirement call.

“Not yet. I’m not there yet,” de Villiers said on Tuesday.

“The reason being that I just need to settle things in my head. Over the last few years something has come to mind, which is the fact that we haven’t won a World Cup yet. And for me to make it to the 2019 World Cup, I can’t really be serious in every format.

“So I’ve made myself unavailable for the New Zealand Test series. I will be there for the ODIs,” he said.