'I did bit of a blunder...": AB de Villiers offers fresh apology to Virat Kohli's family over 'second child' claim

South African cricket legend AB de Villiers offered a fresh apology on Saturday for claiming star Indian batter Virat Kohli was expecting a second child with wife Anushka Sharma.

De Villiers, a close friend of Kohli with whom he spent several seasons at Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League, insisted he committed a ” blunder” by saying such things on a public platform and apologised to the entire Kohli family as a result.

“My friend Virat Kohli is still not available. I cry out to everybody to give him the privacy that he deserves. Family comes first. No one knows what exactly is going on. I am asking all of us to respect that. I did bit of a blunder in my previous show and I apologize to the Kohli family for that,” the former South Africa captain said in a live broadcast conducted through his YouTube channel.

ABD, as he is popularly known, had on Friday apologised for sharing “false information” in an earlier video posted on YouTube, where he claimed that Kohli’s absence from the ongoing Test series against England was due to them expecting a second child. De Villiers added no one was quite sure as to what was happening, and that family always comes first even for a top athlete.

“Absolutely family comes first, it’s a priority, as I said on my YouTube show. Also, I made a terrible mistake at the same time and yeah, sharing false information which was not true at all. No one knows what’s happening,” De Villiers was quoted as saying according to IANS.

Read | ‘Virat Kohli hasn’t informed us till now’ – BCCI official

Kohli and actor wife Anushka had welcomed a daughter Vamika in January 2021, with the former flying back home midway during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy against Australia.

The former India captain had originally been named in the squad for the first two Tests against England, in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam respectively, only for Kohli to withdraw just three days before the series opener citing “personal reasons”. The BCCI too refrained from going into details with regards to Kohli’s leave of absence while making an official statement on the matter.

Both Kohli as well as Shreyas Iyer, who batted at the former’s No 4 spot in the first two Tests, were left out of the squad for the remaining three Tests that was unveiled by the BCCI on Saturday.