AB de Villiers

“The most important people to please are your family.”

“For me, in green and gold, it must be everything or nothing.”

“I have always wanted to play at the top of the order.”

“The World Cup is a tough tournament.”

“Far from being a mere consequence of winning, strong team spirit is an essential ingredient of sporting success; it comes before, not afterwards.”

“Obviously I want to be there at the end every time, winning games for the team.”

“If you pick up that information, the first metre or two, the ball coming out of the hand, you can analyse what's coming.”

“Even the thunderous master-blasters, like Andre Russell and MS Dhoni, men who now make scoring more than 20 runs per over look simple, often thrive on the right side of an incredibly slender gap between six and out. They are not more lucky than anyone else. They are more brilliant.”

“Yes, I would have loved to win it, but I have great memories from World Cups. The 2007 tournament - my first - was very special.”

“For my part, I am not a great believer in bad luck on the cricket field, in business - in fact, in any walk of life.”

“There's a lot of reasons I had to move on. Family's definitely a big part of it. And the longevity of my career - I played for 15 years, and I was just tired of the whole international scene. It's quite busy. Very stressful.”

“It will never be much fun until a Proteas team finally goes out and wins one of these ICC limited-overs tournaments. That will happen one day.”

“Sometimes you don't quite realise what you have achieved until you look back.”

“I am fully aware that cricket is like a second religion in Pakistan.”

“I'm a bit undercooked when it comes to keeping in Test cricket, but I've had a lot of experience in T20 and ODIs for my country, and my keeping has improved a lot.”

“There are so many dreams that I'd like to follow.”

“There are lots of mentally very tough players that I have played against and with.”

“I don't really like attention too much.”

“I do enjoy fielding.”

“I just try and earn my right to get on top of the bowlers, and that is how I play every game.”