AB de Villiers says Indian journalism has gotten ‘so low’

Former South African cricketer AB de Villiers hit back at the Indian media for misrepresenting his comments on Hardik Pandya.

While commenting on the captaincy of Mumbai Indians captain Pandya in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024, De Villiers called him a brave captain, but Indian media has taken his statement out of context.

In a video posted on X (Formerly Twitter) AB de Villiers said, “I see there’s a lot of activity on X about the comments that I made about Hardik Pandya and Mumbai Indians, and it’s a shame that journalism and reporting has got so low. And I’m very happy that some of you have pointed that out. Taking some of my comments and leaving the rest out.”

“I very clearly stated and I will state this again, I absolutely love the way Hardik Pandya plays his game. I love the way he captains. All I was saying is his style of captaincy is something he has certainly worked on. It’s not something he can just walk out of a door and you are a brave captain, he decided,” De Villiers added.

Slamming Indian reporters, the smashing batsman opined, “I wish that you reporters out there would see it for that and write about stuff like that, because that’s actually really powerful. Sometimes you have to put up a front and to show the opposition you are a force to be reckoned with. And that’s what Hardik Pandya does. Well. And I’m saying that style is not always the easiest style to adapt to, especially for some senior players.”

The leadership of Mumbai Indians was handed over from Rohit Sharma to Hardik Pandya, but the performance of Mumbai Indians under his captaincy was very poor and they became the first team to be eliminated from the event.

Despite a star-studded line-up in the ongoing IPL, the five-time champions have struggled under the leadership of Hardik and are ninth in the points table with just four wins out of 13 matches so far.