Former South Africa and Royal Challengers Bangalore cricketer AB de Villiers has clarified his comments on his right eye. De Villiers made headlines after he told Wisden’s Cricket Monthly that he played the last 2-3 years of his Indian Premier League career with a detached retina.
“My young son accidentally kicked me on my eye with his heel. I started really losing vision in the right eye. When I got the surgery done the doctor actually asked me, ‘How in the world did you play cricket like this?’. Luckily my left eye did a decent job for the last two years of my career,” AB de Villiers had told Wisden Cricket Monthly.
Clarifying his comment on his YouTube channel, de Villiers said that it is not like he could not see, but things sometimes went a little blurry while he was batting.
“And there’s a bit of a headline for you guys. Something that I hoped would never get out. I did speak about it casually, but I was hoping it wouldn’t become a headline. So I have to explain myself again,” de Villiers said on his YouTube channel.
“Later on, in the IPL the last 2-3 seasons I realised there was a bit of a blurry, blurred vision with my right eye. I was always testing it on the scoreboard. I was actually caught on the camera once, and I think the commentators mentioned something like, ‘yeah, he’s getting his eye in’. Meanwhile, I was just going like, ‘Why is this eye so blurry? And this one is fine’. I would put eye drops in. When I got the surgery done, the doctor actually asked me how in the world you play cricket like this. Luckily, my left eye did a decent job. So my left eye is the dominant eye luckily, but the right one did struggle for the last few years,” de Villiers concluded.
The legendary cricketer played his final season for RCB in 2021. Despite raging demands from fans that he should continue playing for RCB, de Villiers did not return to franchise cricket, stating that the Covid-19 era had taken a toll on him. De Villiers is currently the ambassador for South Africa’s SA20 and is expected to return to RCB in a management role later in the future.
