Port Elizabeth - It was roughly this time last year that Quinton de Kock had just stopped hobbling around on crutches after rolling his ankle the previous month against the West Indies during the Test series. It was not the ideal build-up to the young man’s debut on the biggest stage of all: the World Cup.
A career that had only known an upward trajectory suddenly had the rug pulled out from under its feet, and it took a while before the Proteas prodigy rediscovered his touch.
In fact, it required the 23-year-old to be dropped from both the Test and limited-overs squads midway through 2015 for something to click back into gear.
With De Kock, it hardly ever requires a technical alteration because he plays the game in very simplistic way: see the ball, hit the ball. Often it is a mental shift that goes from fearless to completely care-free.
De Kock is at his most lethal when he’s not thinking too much about game plans, situations and roles. There’s a touch of Herschelle Gibbs about him in that his laissez-faire attitude is almost beneficial, as it allows him to play with a sense of freedom that others only aspire to.
And like Gibbs, who previously held the national record of 21 ODI centuries until AB de Villiers went past him last year, De Kock has an insatiable appetite for three-figure scores in limited-overs colours. His effort on Wednesday in Bloemfontein was the ninth time he had reached the milestone in just 53 ODIs. Such hunger has seen De Kock become the youngest South African player to score 2000 ODI runs.
His latest century was arguably the best of the lot, though. An undefeated 138 off 96 balls (12x4, 4x6) was De Kock’s career highest ODI score, but his knock has to be appreciated for more than just the numbers.
It was an innings that De Kock looked in complete control from the outset. This was particularly impressive as he was leading a gigantic run-chase. Ultimately, South Africa couldn’t chase down England’s 399/9 at the Manguang Oval, but that was due to a thunderstorm that enveloped the ground and not because of De Kock’s failure to take his team over the line.
We will never know whether he would have carried on to take South Africa close had the rain not come down, but he certainly was in the mood to do something special.
“I enjoyed my innings,” he said. “I haven’t scored a hundred like that in a while so it was nice to stay in. Unfortunately with the rain I couldn’t carry the team.
“I would have liked to have done that but I’m sure I will get plenty of more opportunities. We would have loved to have won but it was a steep total. We would have done our best to get there if the rain hadn’t come down.”
De Kock will get many more opportunities to win matches for his country, starting today at St George’s Park.
With South Africa 1-0 down in the five-match series, they might just need another piece of magic from their batting superstar to get them on an even keel.
Weekend Argus