Where will Quinton de Kock’s 2023 World Cup campaign rank in terms of Proteas performances?
Has he elevated himself above Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers, Herschelle Gibbs and Jacques Kallis as the country’s best ODI batter?
If indeed De Kock’s ODI career is over — and he has said it is but also hinted he might be open to a return — he has finished it as South Africa’s seventh highest run-scorer in the format.
Leaving aside the statistical freak that was Kallis — with his 11,550 ODI runs and 273 wickets — it could be argued that only De Villiers and Gibbs, the former with over 9,000 runs to his name and the latter more than 8,000, compete with De Kock, where it matters most in ODIs, the World Cup.
De Kock came into the 2023 tournament desperate to turn around what was a dreadful record in the premier competition in this format. He’d averaged 30 from his previous two tournaments, having scored just four half-centuries in total.
But in India he delivered like no other batter has for South Africa at a World Cup, not De Villiers, not Kallis, not Amla and not Gibbs. He has more hundreds at a World Cup — four — than any Proteas batter and he was the first player from the country to surpass 500 in a single tournament.
But beyond the runs and the statistics it is what De Kock has done behind the scenes that has surprised and galvanised teammates.
He poured himself into every aspect of the team’s planning, attending both batting and bowling meetings, he shared his experience with rookie teammates, and on the field was a driving force in the leadership core.
Close observers of the Proteas would have lost count of the number of occasions De Kock sprinted from his position behind the stumps towards Temba Bavuma to discuss a tactical change in the field or with the ball.
It was the same with the bowlers, from the young ones like Gerald Coetzee to older heads like Keshav Maharaj, who all had De Kock sharing a thought or giving advice. That oft-spoken cricket brain of his was running through every scenario he could think of to take his team to a place it had never been.
Television cameras caught him cajoling his teammates during a drinks break in Thursday night’s semifinal and it was clear the passion which Rassie van der Dussen and Rob Walter had said De Kock was showing behind the scenes, was real.
De Kock certainly played as if these were his last weeks in an ODI shirt.
He embraced the dirty part of his job at the top of the order, absorbing the new ball, before unleashing the full array of his stunning stroke play to increase the Proteas scoring rate. Behind the stumps, he equalled a record for the most dismissals in an innings at a World Cup and his mastery in using the Decision Review System is something that the Proteas will certainly miss.
It is a format in which De Kock has thrived but one he can easily sacrifice, certainly when a World Cup is not being played, because of the lucrative T20 Leagues in which he is a popular presence. He will still be available for next year’s T20 World Cup in the Caribbean and the US, and his teammates will hope the same attitude he showed here will be present for that tournament.
“We’ll have a couple of drinks with him and celebrate what a great career he has had,” David Miller said after the heartbreaking semifinal loss at Eden Gardens. “We had a great send-off in South Africa before the World Cup, which was really cool. Tonight we will enjoy what a great journey it’s been to celebrate an outstanding player.”
From the runs, to the catches, the cheeky smile when asking for a review of Babar Azam in Chennai, which went in his favour (of course), the fake Proteas shirts with his name misspelt in Chennai (the printer was set to ‘C’ and not ‘K’), De Kock made this tournament — as far as South Africa is concerned — his.
And perhaps it is only Lance Klusener in 1999 who had as impactful a role for South Africa at a World Cup. In many respects De Kock has owed his teammates — notably Bavuma, who had his back at the T20 World Cup in 2021 — this kind of performance.
