"My eldest son kicked me in right eye": De Villiers recalls playing with blurred vision during last two years of his career
Dec 09, 2023
Johannesburg [South Africa], December 9 : South African batting legend and former captain AB De Villiers said that he struggled with blurry vision in his right eye during the last two years of his career, which was caused by an accident involving one of his sons.
In a recent interview with Wisden Cricket Monthly, De Villiers described how he had played for the last two years with a detached retina.
Later on, De Villiers described an incident involving his son which injured his right eye. Luckily, De Villiers' left eye was the dominant one while playing and he could continue playing despite the damage done to the right one.
"Talked about my eye injury in yesterday's live show. Since the story surfaced, thought it's best if I exactly explain what happened. Thanks for all your concern and love, always. Full episode: https://youtube.com/live/l8xEKoTb4Wo?si=6ApuvlHaPWHoqskR... #CricketTwitter #360Live," tweeted De Villiers.
https://twitter.com/ABdeVilliers17/status/1733377180955275642
"I did speak about it casually, I was hoping it would not become a headline. I will explain myself again. It was an accident a few years back, my eldest son did a backflip and I was busy with my middle son John. He kicked me with his heel on my right eye. I did not think much of it at that time. I fell on the carpet in shock, I was scared to take my hands away from my eyes, I thought my eye was out, literally. When I removed my hands off, I was like okay I could see still. It was fine," said De Villiers on his YouTube channel.
"Later on in the IPL, the last two three seasons of my career, I realised I had a bit of blurry vision in my right eye. I was testing it on the scoreboard. I was once caught on camera, once and commentators mentioned that 'he was getting his eye in'. Meanwhile, I wondered why this eye was blurry and the other one was fine. I was putting eye drops in it. When my doctor got the surgery done he 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, My left eye is the dominant eye luckily, but the right eye struggled for the last few years," he added.
From 2004 to 2018, De Villiers represented SA in 420 matches across all formats, scoring 20,014 runs at an average of 48.11, with 47 centuries and 109 fifties. His best score was 278*. He is considered one of the greatest batters of all time due to not only his consistency but also his 360-degree strokeplay.
In the Indian Premier League (IPL), in which he played for Delhi Capitals and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), De Villiers played 184 matches, scoring 5.162 runs at an average of 39.71 and a strike rate of over 151, with the best score of 133*. He scored three centuries and 40 fifties in his IPL career.
