The son of Dr. Abraham Benjamin de Villiers, he attended Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool (Afrikaans High School for Boys, also known as Affies), a public school located in Pretoria. De Villiers is a right-handed batsman, who, in a very short space of time, has accumulated many runs in Tests including 21 centuries and 36 fifties. He still holds the record for most Test innings without registering a duck (78),before being dismissed for nought against Bangladesh in November 2008. He also holds the second-highest individual score by a South African batsman in an innings, with 278*. Until 2012, he was an occasional wicket-keeper for South Africa, although since the retirement of regular Test keeper Mark Boucher and under his own ODI captaincy he has started to regularly keep wicket for the national side in Tests, ODIs and T20Is, but then decided to give up wicketkeeping after the debut of Quinton de Kock, and started becoming a part-time bowler.He was one of South Africa's part-time bowlers along with JP Duminy and Farhaan Behardien to fill the quota of the 5th Bowler in 2015 Cricket World Cup.