Quinton de Kock: A divisive figure, a genius and South Africa’s batting atlas at the World Cup | Cricket-world-cup News

Paddy Upton, the South African mind master who has untangled the complex worlds inside cricket and hockey dressing rooms, described it the best without having to use his own words.Explaining the underrated genius of Quinton de Kock, the sports psycholog who has been a part of Gary Kirsten’s coaching staff with South Africa and India, dipped into a brief conversation he had with Rahul Dravid.
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It was the summer of 2016 and Upton had just taken over from Kirsten as the coach of Delhi Daredevils in the IPL.
He was overseeing de Kock’s nets session when Dravid, the team’s mentor, walked up to him.
“Rahul said to me that what we were witnessing was the act of a genius. He said that we, as South Africans, did not appreciate just how good this guy was,” Upton told The Cricket Monthly in an interview. “I had goosebumps when Rahul told me this. It was an incredible moment.”
On Tuesday, Bangladesh would have enduring nightmares of de Kock’s ‘genius’.
There was a stuffed tiger in the stands. Eleven stuffed tigers on the field. And a glum-looking man in tiger’s stripes in the lower tier of the Sachin Tendulkar stand with hands on his head. All shell-shocked at another South African carnage.
Indeed, it was Heinrich Klaasen who once again made a professional bowling unit look maidan grade with his imperious hitting. But it was de Kock’s nuanced knock of 174, which saw an equal measure of control and aggression, that led South Africa to back-to-back massive wins at Wankhede after a shock defeat to the Netherlands.
In Mumbai’s sapping humidity – not as hot as it was against England but sultry nevertheless – de Kock spent 199 minutes on the field, running tirelessly between the wickets (72 of his runs came in 1s and 2s) and switching to big-hitting, including a reverse-sweep six off Mahmudullah, towards the end. When he was dismissed in the 46th over, de Kock had scored more than half of South Africa’s runs (174 out of 309).
The twin victories have bolstered the World Cup’s most entertaining side’s net run rate and propelled them closer to the semifinals.
And it’s strangely poetic that the man adorning the hero’s cape for them in this campaign is also the one who, quite often, has remained inscrutable behind the anti-hero mask he frequently wears.
De Kock – the tournament’s highest run-scorer so far (407 runs in 5 matches) and has scored one-sixth of the centuries in this World Cup (3 out of 18 so far) – is making his ODI swansong an affair to remember; going out on a high for someone who has had a conflicted relationship with the team.
On one end of the spectrum, de Kock is celebrated as one of the country’s greatest wicket keeper-batsmen and is spoken about in the same breath as the Bouchers, Gilchrs and Dhonis. On the other extreme, he’s looked upon as a fey character whose loyalty has often been put to test.
Once, when – in 2021 – he refused to play in a T20 World Cup match when the players had been asked to take a knee in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. That de Kock informed captain Temba Bavuma that he was willing to skip a match but not take a knee on the way to the stadium in Dubai irks many even now.
In the same year, after he announced his retirement from Tests in the middle of a home series against India – once again, without informing captain Bavuma beforehand – it further stoked sentiments against him.
So you can guess which way the debate would have swung when he decided to walk away from ODIs after the World Cup for T20 money – which he has been candid about.
De Kock has made no secret about him being a ‘fey character’ but his reputation has preceded him since his younger days when he reportedly got tangled in many dressing room tiffs, including with his coaches.
In the same interview where he recalled the conversation with Dravid, Upton also provided great insight into de Kock’s character.
“When a guy is as naturally gifted as Quinton there is a risk of blow-ups when things go against them. He’s also a naturally shy and quiet guy and so isn’t necessarily going to vocalise any frustrations he may be feeling,” Upton told the website. “The energy contained within him has the power to be explosive on a cricket field but it can also explode in other ways.”
Exploding in the middle
Luckily for South Africa, the left-hander more often than not exploded in the middle.
De Kock, now 30, was 20 when he made his ODI debut. He’ll end his career as South Africa’s most dominant opener, with a strike rate of close to 100; better than everyone else. He has the fifth-best ODI average among South African batsmen, pointing to the fact that he isn’t merely a PowerPlay hitter.Most Read
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Only four players – Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan and Joe Root – have scored more runs in ODIs since de Kock made his debut in 2013. And with 20 tons, he has the fourth most ODI centuries for his country; behind Hashim Amla (27), AB de Villiers (25) and Herchelle Gibbs (21).
Crucially for South Africa, they have lost just two times in the 20 ODIs in which he has scored a century. No wonder, then, that the South Africans believe that for them to finally go all the way in this World Cup, they’ll need de Kock to be at his best.
Whether South Africa go from chokers to champions over the next three weeks remains to be seen. But one thing is sure, when de Kock will hang the iconic green jersey at the end of the campaign, the fans will ask ‘why’ not ‘when’.