Castle Lager Proteas batsman, AB de Villiers, is set to become the seventh South African to play 100 Test matches when he takes the field in the second Test against India at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Saturday.
De Villiers returned to the summit of the ICC Test batting rankings earlier this week, and joins an elite list of batsmen featuring Graham Gooch, Brian Lara, Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting to name a few, who played their 100th Test as the No.1 ranked batsman.
The 31-year-old addressed the media in Bengaluru on Thursday afternoon and spoke modestly of his illustrious 10-year Test career.
“I’m all about performances for the team and special victories,” he said when asked of his most special Test matches.
“My mind goes to lots of series victories away from home. A couple of times in England, a couple of times in Australia, we have had a few good Test series here (India) even though we didn’t win there were a few matches where we played higher than expectations. There are a lot of Test matches that come to mind, the Sri Lanka Test series win was also special, most of the away victories. It’s special to play in front of your home crowd but people don’t expect you to do well away from home, we have had a good record away from home.
“It says a lot about the character and resilience we have in the side, not only as a cricket team but as a nation as well. It makes me really proud to have been part of the best cricket team touring all over and winning games of cricket. We are up against it here in India and it’s another great challenge for us, it will be another good story to come back from this.”
