Less than half a year remains for the start of the World Cup. We’ve probably delivered our verdict and if not, then we may be ready to do so shortly.
South Africa would expect one of its top guns, also among the most experienced players around to recover back to full form.
It’s been a bit of a damp year for Quinton de Kock in 2018.
By his usual classy standards, it can be said, Quinton de Kock, who turns 26, has endured a pale season.
He played 9 Tests this year. This is indicative of a lot of opportunity for batting, in fact, the most if you ignore the 12 Tests he got to play in 2017.
But just what did Quinton de Kock gather?
The left-hander, associated with fluent strikes and powerful shots down the ground accumulated 347 runs at a rather sedate average of 20.
This isn’t the Quinton de Kock we’ve come to know.
No hundreds were struck. On only 2 occasions did he raise his bat to thank the patience of the fans that may have burst into celebration had those fifties in the whites been converted into something more wholesome.
It’s worth mentioning, that along with the likes of Ajinkya Rahane, Kraigg Brathwaite, Hashim Amla, all of whom have endured rather an ordinary year, particularly in the longest format, Quinton de Kock seems the captain of 2018’s ordinary XI.
But the worry doesn’t end here.
If you were to combine his Test efficiencies of 2017 and 2016, then you’d find the batsman, often associated with belligerent hitting to have contributed 3 centuries and 9 fifties from 20 Tests.
The past two calendar year’s in Tests have reaped an average of 45, one you’d associate with a batsman who is top-class. And it’s fair to call Quinton just that.
After all, at a time where AB de Villiers was still very much an active player, with the likes of Miller, Amla, Faf in the team, it was Quinton, as a young 21-year-old who greeted India with pure decimation.
Regardless of what he might have come to achieve, you cannot mention Quinton de Kock without touching upon his 2013 form, a year he made headlines for treating an Indian team with Sharma, Dhawan, Kohli, Yuvi, Mahi in it with imperious hostility.
How many batsmen- it must be asked- have mishandled India in their maiden assignment with the sub-continental side. This was an outfit, laced with some talent and intrigue, with the likes of Jadeja, Shami, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, and Ashwin being in top form.
Assisting his side in a 141-run assault in the opening ODI courtesy a flamboyant, 121-ball-135, de Kock would prove his knock- 18 boundaries and 3 sixes- wasn’t a flash in the pan by striking 106 off 118, in the very next game, a knock that featured 9 boundaries.
This effort at Durban indeed proved that South Africa had a prince in their batting line-up, one who ruled at Kingsmead.
But if you thought two ODI hundreds in, as many innings were all, then think again.
To this day, 82 ODI innings since his famous pillaging of India (2013) does the knock in the third ODI come to mind.
At Centurion, there’d be another century from the famous Jo’burg born batsman. In creating a record for striking 3 back-to-back hundreds against India- for being the only ODI batsman in the world to do so against a team that had God in its rank, de Kock became the de facto troubler of India.
His 101 off 120 was arguably the best knock of the three efforts, especially because it steered the Proteas clear of the danger they found themselves in when Amla and Duminy departed cheaply.
It’s not that de Kock- who’s struck 5 of his 13 ODI tons against India- hasn’t picked other international teams apart.
If you were to rewind back to 2017, then among the best knocks seen all year would be that 168 not out, against Bangladesh at Kimberly. This was an inning that stripped bare Bangladesh’s middle over fragilities as underlined by Rubel and Mashrafe’s inabilities to adapt to greener tops that assisted batsmen.
A lot of Bangladesh’s current prowess is about spin. Isn’t it?
Well, Quinton took Shakib out of the attack twice in that inning proved that probably that strength is often realized on Bangladeshi tracks.
A year back, in 2016, he played his most outstanding ODI knock, a ballsy 178 against Australia that came off just 113 deliveries at a strike rate that mirrored what the big cannibals operating in T20s harvest at the back of utterly spineless bowling, such as Gayle, Pollard, Yuvraj, Stokes and the likes.
This was, hell, an ODI and was against a troika of experienced Australian bowlers such as John Hastings, Adam Zampa, and Mitch Marsh.
Probably, there’s nothing that de Kock’s game doesn’t have that could heighten him to scale the peaks he’s expected of.
For instance, a 200 in an ODI doesn’t seem spectacularly out of his reach. Should he get there, it would make for a fitting scene, especially since no Protean has garnered that feat yet.
What isn’t out of reach is a Test double.
Along with possessing a wide array of strokes that typically pick the ropes anywhere from widish mid-on to the square region on the off, de Kock reminds us that he’s a different animal altogether.
His 6000 international runs, so far compel one to believe that he shouldn’t be subjected to trashy, unconstructive criticism. After all, here’s a batsman who operates over a strike rate of 70 in Tests. Did you know?
With a strike-rate touching 130 in T20s- okay, normal by his usually exasperating standards- there’s something else that cannot be taken lightly.
That even before he can touch the mark of 40 Tests and 100 ODIs, he’s faced over 7000 deliveries in the game, which tells us something of his ability to stick on.
Does it not?
He may not possess the patience of a Pujara, the cunning acumen of a Virat to negotiate with spin especially during testing times, but he’s a batsman who seems a Marlon Samuels + Darren Bravo in 1 lethal frame.
That he gets out lazily to poorly manufactured strokes, even if they’re in a bid to up the scoring rate, a hasty zest that you’d find the likes of Amla and Faf abstaining from speaks of the long way he’s to walk if we’re to hear Quinton the ‘promising’ batsman being called a ‘great.’
That he can surely go a long way along that path seems certain. But whether he can convert possibility into an outcome depends solely on his need and desire to improve.
For now, he’d do well to remember that a new year is ahead of him. Forget what happened in 2018 and begin again.
Honestly, there’s nothing that Faf, Amla and Markram, his junior, would want from this baby-faced bowler-destructor other than for his flowing runs to return.
Isn’t it?