AB De Villiers Ranks Himself Above Sachin Tendulkar In ODIs, Virat Kohli Takes This Spot. There's A Catch

Former South Africa captain AB de Villiers was asked to blind-rank top 10 ODI batters of the 21-st century. During an appearance on 'Beard Before Wicket' podcast, which is co-hosted by England cricketers Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid, the 41-year-old was asked to to rank each batter between one and ten without knowing who comes next. The host of the show caught him off-guard, as the first person on the list was none other than Sachin Tendulkar. What de Villiers said after this sparked a laughing riot.

"Here we go again, I see the headlines already. If I go 9 I'm in trouble," de Villiers admitted as the host took Sachin's name. He went on to rank the leading run-scorer in the history of the format at no. 4.

Apart from Sachin, de Villiers also ranked three more India batters -- Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma. De Villiers placed his comptariot Hashim Amla just below Sachin at no. 5. Australia great Ricky Ponting was just above the Master Blaster at no. 3.

At the top, de Villiers had a place reserved for his friend and former RCB teammate Virat Kohli. He placed him at the top without any hesitance. He picked Rohit and Dhoni at no. 6 and 7, respetively.

The last three names on the list were Kumar Sangakkara, Babar Azam and David Warner. "Not a bad list," de Villiers was heard as saying at the end of the segment.

With the number two slot still open when his name came up, he gladly took his own name.

AB de Villiers' full blind ranking of ODI batters post-2000

1. Virat Kohli

2. AB de Villiers

3. Ricky Ponting

4. Sachin Tendulkar

5. Hashim Amla

6. Rohit Sharma

7. MS Dhoni

8. Kumar Sangakkara

9. Babar Azam

10. David Warner

Topics mentioned in this article

Virat Kohli Rohit Sharma MS Dhoni Sachin Tendulkar AB de Villiers Cricket