According to reports, an offer was made by de Villiers during May, just 24 hours before South Africa's selection committee revealed their 15-man squad for England.
South African cricketing genius AB de Villiers made a last-ditch effort to come out of his International retirement for this year's ICC World Cup 2019. But the South African team management turned him down on the day of their final squad announcement for the tournament. The SA management apparently believed that calling AB de Villiers back would be unfair towards the current players who had been training together for the past year or so for the World Cup.
According to reports, an offer was made by de Villiers during May, just 24 hours before South Africa's selection committee revealed their 15-man squad for England.
AB allegedly approached South Africa's head coach Ottis Gibson, selector Linda Zondi and captain Faf du Plessis, to showcase his willingness to come out of his retirement this summer of the WC, but his request was turned down.
The selection committee made its decision apparently based on two main reasons: One of the main ones being him announcing his retirement in May 2018, which was exactly a year before the World Cup 2019 and thus he didn't fulfil the selection requirements of playing domestic or international cricket for South Africa in the following months.
The other reason was that a recall for AB would mean being unfair towards the players who have been training hard and performing in the absence of him for the national side. Players like Rassie van der Dussen, who scored three half-centuries in his first four ODI innings for South Africa during his debut against Pakistan.
AB while speaking on Indian TV in May, dropped a hit about a return to the SA side by saying: "I was keen to play in the World Cup, but I left, I retired. It was a very sensitive situation," he added. "For the last three years of my career, I was labelled as a guy who is picking and choosing when I was playing and when not. So I got quite a lot of criticism from back home, which also played a role in me retiring. And it was difficult for me to then go 'Hey, but I'll still play the World Cup'. It's that picking and choosing thing again, and it's quite arrogant to do something like that. But as they say, you can't have your bread buttered on both sides."
After their recent defeat to team India on Wednesday at the Rose Bowl, South Africa now need to win all the rest of their games to qualify for the final phases of this year's World Cup 2019. Losing back-to-back-to-back games against England, Pakistan and India have left them in a lot of trouble and recent injuries top players like D.Steyn and L.Ngidi isn't helping the situation at all.
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