Legendary South African batter AB de Villiers named his all-time IPL XI during a recent podcast with Shubhankar Mishra, where he included two Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) captains—Virat Kohli and Daniel Vettori—alongside himself in the lineup. The revelation came amid the World Championship of Legends (WCL) 2025, where De Villiers played a starring role for the title-winning South Africa Champions.

De Villiers picked an XI stacked with IPL greats across eras. He said: "Rohit Sharma, Matthew Hayden, Virat Kohli at three, Suryakumar Yadav, myself at five, at six let's go Hardik Pandya, MS Dhoni seven, Bumrah at eight, Yuzi Chahal nine, Lasith Malinga ten, I'll just throw a little spin in the works, Daniel Vettori at eleven."
With Kohli batting at No. 3 and Vettori listed as the second spinner, the XI reflected both De Villiers' deep IPL experience and his respect for former RCB teammates and rivals.

Daniel Vettori was the skipper of RCB from 2011 to 2012. He won 15 out of 28 games and took the franchise to the 2011 IPL final. Virat Kohli took over as captain from 2013 to 2023 and also piloted the team in the 2016 final. De Villiers, who started with RCB in 2011, was the main man in the team’s batting line-up till 2021, scoring 4522 runs in 157 matches at an average of 41.10, including two hundreds and 37 fifties. 

De Villiers ignites WCL 2025 with game-changing ton

On top of being an all-time XI pick, De Villiers made headlines with his very good performance in the WCL 2025. The last match against the Pakistan Champions, he hit 120 unbeaten off only 60 balls while chasing 195. The innings of his, being 12 fours and 7 sixes, gave South Africa Champions the win in only 16.5 overs with nine wickets in hand. 

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De Villiers finished the competition as the top run-getter, scoring 429 runs in six games at an astonishing average of 143. His WCL stint saw him scoring three centuries and one half-century, confirming that the ex-IPL star has the fire that made him the most feared batsman in world cricket.