‘AB de Villiers was in line to play T20 World Cup,’ confirms South Africa captain Quinton de Kock

South Africa's limited-overs captain Quinton de Kock has confirmed that former batsman AB de Villiers was in line to make a comeback and play the T20 World Cup which was originally scheduled to take place later this year in Australia.

For months, de Villiers, who announced his retirement from international cricket in 2018, had shown eagerness to return for South Africa's T20 World Cup campaign but with the tournament now postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, doubts have resurfaced about the former South Africa captain's return.

Reports of de Villiers' potential comeback first started doing the rounds during last year's World Cup, where the former SA captain had informed Faf du Plessis of his desire to play the World Cup, causing a huge stir. With South Africa struggling to deliver good results, du Plessis had earlier stated that plans are being made to bring de Villiers back for the T20 World Cup.

Earlier this year, it was reported that de Villiers was set to play in at least one of South Africa's T20I series before the T20 World Cup, where he's expected to make an international comeback.

"He was definitely in line. If fit, I would have loved to have AB de Villiers. I think any team would have loved to have AB de Villiers in their team. While we were pushing for him, now we will have to see when the T20 World Cup is going to happen now," de Kock said on the Cricket Connected show on Star Sports.

It was in January that CSA appointed de Kock as the captain of a new-look South Africa. He replaced du Plessis SA's ODI and T20I captain. South Africa's director of cricket Graeme Smith announced in April that the wicketkeeper batsman would not be elevated to Test captaincy. de Kock himself didn't want Test captaincy as he feels that "extra pressure" of leading the team in traditional format would have been "too much stress" for him.

"I think it is too much work to be honest. I have to be the wicketkeeper, go up in the batting order. Captaining all three formats in general takes its toll. I don't think I am the guy who can lead all three teams. I think I am pretty happy with T20s and ODIs," the South Africa captain said.