‘I don’t quite trust this guy yet’ – AB de Villiers on his first impression about Virat Kohli

AB de Villiers didn’t get the right vibes from Virat Kohli when he first met him in the Indian Premier League (IPL). After spending three years at the Delhi Daredevils, now Capitals, the former South African batsman moved to the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). Kohli, on the other hand, has been with the Bangalore franchise since the inaugural edition in 2008.

From there on Virat and ABD’s relationship has flourished. Recently, the duo went live on their Instagram handle and discussed about the lot of matters, De Villiers also told how he was skeptical about Virat when he first interacted with him. Prior to that, he got to know about the Delhi-born from Mark Boucher, who played 31 matches in his IPL career.

I’ve seen the style but I’m not convinced: AB de Villiers

“It’s an interesting story, it’s a very human thing to do when you hear about someone for a few years, I had heard a lot about you from Mark Boucher. I think you were 18-19 when you started playing for RCB and Boucher would tell me about you. I had known you for three years but had never met you,” De Villiers was quoted as saying in DNA.

“It’s a human thing to sort of put a bit of defence around you. I remember walking up that tunnel, I remember saying ‘Hi’ but the defences were on like I don’t quite trust this guy yet, I’ve heard a lot about him, I’ve seen the hair, I’ve seen the style but I’m not convinced,” De Villiers added.

Though RCB are yet to get their hands on the IPL trophy, Virat and De Villiers managed to garner a huge lot of fandom. In most seasons, the duo turned out to be two of RCB’s prolific run-scorers. Kohli and ABD also share the top two highest partnerships ever in the T20 tournament.

Back in 2015, they recorded an unbeaten stand of 215 against the Mumbai Indians. In the very next year, they added 229 runs against the Gujarat Lions. Even as Kohli is the leading run-scorer in the IPL, ABD has done brilliantly as well, scoring 4,395 runs at an average of 39.95.