“Even though my body tells me I am 40 my ID says I am 31. But mentally I try and think I am 20 all the time.” – Quinton de Kock
Telford Vice / Cape Town
SOMETHING like the real Quinton de Kock stood up in a television interview broadcast before the fifth ODI between South Africa and Australia at the Wanderers on Sunday — his last match in the format on home soil. Often among the most unforthcoming of press conference victims, De Kock spoke with candour.
Why was he, at 30, calling time on his involvement in the 50-over game? “It was a feeling I was getting,” De Kock said. “I remember at the end of my Test career, I was fighting [against] playing Test matches. I spoke to the people who I trust in my life and they said if you want to, there’s no shame in it. Retire so you can focus on other forms.”
Does the buffet of T20 leagues available to players of his calibre tilt the balance? “I am not going to sit here and deny that it doesn’t. It helps with my decision. I’ve been around for 10, 11 years and I’ve tried to keep my loyalty to the team, which I think I’ve done really well. I think I have represented the Proteas badge very well over my career.
“T20 events; I am not going to deny that there is a lot of money. Coming to the end of your career guys want to get their final top-up. Any normal person would do it. If I was really not that loyal I would have [retired] five years ago when [T20 leagues] really took off. Now I am older and with me coming to the down slope of my career, it’s time.”
This being the softball world of television, where pertinent questions tend to remain unasked, De Kock’s assertion about loyalty went unchallenged despite his history of disrupting the dressingroom.
In October 2021 he refused to play in a T20 World Cup match rather than take a knee in support of the fight for social justice, as the players had been told to do by CSA’s board. He revealed his decision to his then captain, Temba Bavuma, on the bus as the South Africans were driven to the ground to play West Indies in Dubai. In December 2021 De Kock retired from Tests in the middle of a home series against India. Bavuma, now South Africa’s ODI captain, said he had also been kept in the dark about De Kock walking away from that format. All of which, from outside the dressingroom, smacks of selfishness.
On the field, De Kock has had one of South African cricket’s great careers. He is their leading run-scorer in T20Is, seventh in ODIs and 15th in Tests. Only Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan and Joe Root have scored more runs in ODIs from De Kock’s debut in January 2013. De Kock has batted with emphatic authority to, more often than not, deliver the goods: South Africa have lost only two of the 17 ODIs in which he has scored a century.
As a wicketkeeper De Kock has shown thinking as sharp as his skills. The runout of Fakhar Zaman he engineered in an ODI at the Wanderers in April 2021 by pointing at the other end of the pitch as the Pakistani ran towards him — thus causing Zaman to look over his shoulder and slow down enough for De Kock to take the throw and break the wicket before he had made his ground — was a thing of genius, albeit ethically questionable. De Kock’s stumping of Marcus Stoinis in Potchefstroom on Tuesday was breathtakingly brilliant — the bails were lit at the precise moment Stoinis’ foot left the ground for a nanosecond.
De Kock will play his last ODIs at the World Cup in India in October and November, and he remains available for T20Is. But the end of his time in any kind of South Africa shirt is approaching. What inner souvenirs would he take with him when that day comes?
“There’s a lot of memories. I’ve spent almost 11 years with this team. I’m glad people think I am young. Even though my body tells me I am 40 my ID says I am 31. But mentally I try and think I am 20 all the time. I like to live life like that. We’ve had a lot of good memories along the way, things you can’t just forget. The guys know I am an elephant, I don’t forget. I remember every last bit of detail about everything. It’s some skill I have just developed.”
What might he miss? Rest, it seems, from taking care of his daughter, Kiara, who will turn two in January. “The little one is always keeping me busy and on my toes. There’s a lack of sleep and free time when I am home. So I come on tour to pack my pyjamas and get some extra sleep.”
What will he do when he has taken off his pads and gloves for the last time? “I will take a gap year for sure and then reassess and just go back into society and just be a normal person.”
De Kock’s Sunday at the Wanderers was anything but normal. He might have been trapped in front for nought by the third delivery of the match had Michael Neser not pitched the ball outside leg. Having reached 27 he slashed a drive off Nathan Ellis to slip. A throaty crowd rose in loud salute and De Kock had the good manners to remove his helmet and raise his bat as he walked off. He was met near the boundary by the incoming Aiden Markram, who hugged him.
A teenaged girl in the crowd on the grass bank beyond the western boundary held up a handwritten sign: “Quinny if you give me your gloves I promise I’ll never drop a catch.” She bolted closer to De Kock as he made his way to the entrance of the tunnel leading from the boundary to the dressingroom. De Kock did not appear to see her or her sign.
Halfway up the stairs, alone with his thoughts in something like private, he slammed the toe of his bat into the concrete. Sometimes it has been difficult to believe it, but it’s true: Quinton de Kock is real.
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