“He’s got a daughter now, who he’s probably looking forward to getting back to. That puts life into perspective.” – Mark Boucher on Quinton de Kock.
Telford Vice | Newlands
THERE were no mad dogs and precious few Englishmen about, but too many others went out in the pre and post midday sun for their own good at Newlands on Sunday. Quinton de Kock, for instance, batted for nine minutes short of three hours and then kept wicket for close on four hours.
That added up to more than six-and-a-half hours of daring the weather to undo you on one of the hottest weekends the Western Cape has yet experienced. And that, mind, in long trousers and long sleeves, much of the time wearing a helmet, and all of the time in gloves. At least, if we’re looking for positives, De Kock was in minimal danger of sunburn.
In time terms he was at the crease for a mite more than 70% of South Africa’s innings and, of course, for all of India’s. Of the 595 fair deliveries that constituted the match, De Kock was involved, in some way or another, for 426 of them. That level of fortitude, along with his 124, the fact that he neither dropped a catch nor missed a stumping, and didn’t concede a single bye culminated in, to borrow from baseball, a perfect game.
Infamously, De Kock abandoned his Test career after the first match of India’s tour, at Centurion — where the visitors won. How would South Africa cope without their only remaining proven world class batter? Just fine, as things turned out. They won at the Wanderers in rousing fashion and, less dramatically in the fresh knowledge that they could do it but just as solidly, at Newlands to claim the Test series. The ODI rubber was in the bag after the first two ODIs, on Wednesday and Friday in Paarl. That marked the first time India had lost four matches on one tour to South Africa. Sunday’s win — by four runs, with the Indians dismissed for 283 with four balls left in the match — earned the South Africans five consecutive victories for the first time since they beat Sri Lanka 5-0 in a home ODI series in March 2019.
Until No. 7 Deepak Chahar — playing his first match of the series, which showed in a good way — set about his 34-ball 54 on Sunday, the Indians had looked about as keen to play the ODIs as they might anticipating a dental appointment. Who could blame them: as the matches did not carry World Cup Super League points, it’s as if they didn’t exist. Or shouldn’t have existed. The South Africans, buoyed by the wave of their unexpected success over the world No. 1 team in the Tests, almost couldn’t stop continuing to win.
De Kock made 78 on Friday, which was even hotter than Sunday, and his performance in the third match had much to do with his team being able to complete a whitewash. On Wednesday, De Kock had looked primed for bigger things when R Ashwin cut him off at 27 by rattling his off stump with an arm-ball. But no-one piled up more runs in the series than De Kock: 229 at an average of 76.33 and a strike rate of 96.62. That and the ice-cool Andile Phehlukwayo, who finished as the rubber’s top wicket-taker with six, and at the leading average of 18.33, did more than anything to seal the deal.
As if he has never been away, much less missed being part of two epic Test triumphs, De Kock returned and opened a tap of runs. He played with childlike abandon; like we all do. In our dreams. There’s something about the huntin’, fishin’, outdoorsy kid he will always be in his follow-through; his bat laying long and languid down his back. We saw a lot of that in these three games.
And it was good to see. Cricket is chronically short on adults, on people who take responsibility not only for their own lives but also for those of their nearest and dearest. De Kock’s decision to stop playing Tests because, as he explained, he was becoming a father put him among the grown ups in the dressing room. That he has been able to come back to at least part of the world he knew, and do so emphatically well, and be the boy he used to be into the bargain, is his reward.
“If you look at ‘Quinny’ as a person, when he’s freed his mind up that’s probably when he plays his best cricket,” Mark Boucher told an online press conference. “It was great to see him come out and play the way that we all know ‘Quinny’ can play; the way that he has been when he’s at his best. He’s got that sort of freedom about his game. You can’t have all six of your batters play like that, but you can certainly have one or two. On their day, if they score a hundred, more often than not they’re going to win you a game.
“It’s great to see ‘Quinny’ back and smiling again. He’s got a daughter now, who he’s probably looking forward to getting back to. That puts life into perspective, as a lot of people who are dads will know.”
Perspective. Boucher knows all about that after a week in which he was served with papers for a disciplinary hearing starting on Wednesday on charges that could cost him his job. Coming so soon after he had helped his team win the Test series, and before the start of the ODIs — but years after his victim, Paul Adams, had been racially abused by the language of a dressing room song sung by a team that included Boucher — the sweetness of Sunday’s win would have been tinged with bitterness. Or had it?
“I think you’ll appreciate I can’t answer that,” Boucher said. “Not now, in any case.” Maybe he will once it’s all over and his fate is known. Maybe once the whole picture is painted, not just edited to suit whichever narrative. Maybe when he knows what it feels like to be a boy again. Maybe once mad dogs and Englishmen stop going out in the midday sun.
First published by Cricbuzz.
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