Overview

• De Villiers completed the blind ranking on Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid’s Beard Before Wicket, assigning slots without knowing the next name.
• He placed Virat Kohli first and himself second, followed by Ricky Ponting at three and Sachin Tendulkar at four.
• His full top 10 read: Kohli, de Villiers, Ponting, Tendulkar, Hashim Amla, Rohit Sharma, MS Dhoni, Kumar Sangakkara, Babar Azam, David Warner.
• Confronted with Tendulkar appearing early for a post-2000 list, de Villiers joked, “Here we go again, I see the headlines already. If I go 9 I’m in trouble.”
• He contextualized his views with praise for batting alongside Kohli and coverage highlighted his ODI record of 9,577 runs at 53.50 and his WCL 2025 comeback after retiring in 2021.