Indian star cricketer Virat Kohli has written a letter to former South African batsman AB de Villiers. Kohli wrote this letter after de Villiers was inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame. De Villiers was inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame on Wednesday along with England legend Alastair Cook and India's Neetu David.
The letter, issued by the ICC, has Kohli praising his former teammate from IPL team Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB).
Kohli wrote, 'You fully deserve your place. Ultimately, the Hall of Fame represents your impact on the game and your contributions have been truly great. People have always been talking about your ability and rightly so. You are the most talented cricketer I have played with, you are definitely number one.'
Most like to be self-confident He further wrote, 'But what I liked most was the confidence in your ability. You had a lot of confidence that you could do whatever you wanted on the cricket field and you usually did. That's why you became so special.
I can't think of a better example than when we were batting together for RCB against KKR in Kolkata in 2016. We were chasing a target of 184 runs. KKR included bowlers like Sunil Narine, Morne Morkel, Andre Russell and Shakib Al Hasan. You came to bat with me when the score was 70 runs and Narine was bowling.
You played two dot balls and during the timeout you told me that you were not picking his balls properly. I told you to give me a strike and I will try to hit a boundary on his ball.
After the time-out, Narine came over, I was ready at the non-striker's end and was thinking that you will definitely give me a single. But not doing so, he hit a 94 meter six off Narine.
This is one of the memorable moments when I was batting with you. This was the time when I enjoyed the cricket field the most.'
Has often bailed his team out of trouble 'You were often there to save your team in difficult situations. Your willingness to be the man to win matches for your team was tremendous and I learned a lot from that.'
Forget the last match and watch today 'I remember learning from you that it doesn't matter what we did in the last four games. What matters is how you look at today's match and how you perform. You were always completely in tune with the needs of the team. That is why when we played against each other in international cricket it was the most difficult for you to plan.'
I remember your innings in Delhi in 2015 “Everybody remembers your aggressive shots but you adapt to the situation. Take the Test match in Delhi in 2015 when you scored 43 off 297 balls in an attempt to save the Test match. I still remember that innings.'
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