Former England fast bowler Bob Willis says AB de Villiers is the best ever batsman across all formats.

Willis, talking on SkySports, made the comments while discussing Stuart Broad’s ‘superb’ record of eight dismissals in 11 matches against De Villiers.

Broad removed De Villiers for 49 in South Africa’s first innings at Kingsmead.

‘If you’re getting AB de Villiers out on a regular basis you’re not going too far wrong because I think across all formats of the game De Villiers is probably the best batsman we’ve ever seen,’ said Willis, who played 90 Tests for England and took 325 wickets at an average of 25.2.

‘Clearly players like Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar didn’t play a lot of T20 cricket, but I think we’re all guilty of believing that people we played with in our particular era are the best of all time. Without peer I thought Viv Richards was the best of my era. But I think AB de Villiers is an absolutely top class player.’