Johannesburg - AB de Villiers will not be available to play for South Africa in the three-Test series against New Zealand in March, but he said on Tuesday that he’s not retiring from Test cricket and will continue to negotiate with Cricket South Africa about his availability for the longer format.
De Villiers, the Proteas’ One-Day skipper, will return to the international fold for the final T20 International against Sri Lanka next Wednesday at Newlands, and will lead the side in the five match ODI series which follows.
However there remains a lack of clarity about his Test future and while Cricket SA’s CEO, Haroon Lorgat insists De Villiers is not picking and choosing which Test matches to play, the organisation will sit down with De Villiers to map out his future in the Test arena.
“The big thing for me is to play in the 2019 World Cup,” De Villiers said at the Wanderers on Tuesday. “If I want to do that and be at my best (at that time), then I can’t play every match in every format, between now and then.”
De Villiers has missed the last six months of action with an elbow injury that required surgery in November. He said the elbow was close to being 100% and that he needs just a couple of weeks so that he can get the last “one or two degrees to help it straighten completely.”
South Africa face a heavy and high profile Test schedule over the next 14 months, that also includes four Tests in England, four against India and four against Australia – with the latter two series’ taking place on home soil.
“What we are doing and have tended to do is to take it, a series at a time,” said Lorgat. "I’m confident that by the time we are looking at England, the Champions Trophy, he’ll be fully fit, raring to go, his appetite would have returned.
"By then it would have been a fair amount of time that he would have had. Family circumstances change people, having been at home for a while would have made him very relaxed. I’m confident that England is a kind of a series that he would want to be available for.”
De Villiers, who also confirmed on Tuesday that he and wife Danielle were expecting their second child, played the last of his 106 Tests in Centurion in January 2016 against England, making nought in each innings.
Lorgat said that for planning purposes De Villiers would have to inform CSA, the national coaching staff and the national selectors in good time about whether he is available for a particular Test series. “It can’t be the day or the week before, he needs to indicate in good time,” said Lorgat.