Gqeberha — In his first IPL game of the season, Quinton de Kock announced his arrival with a brilliant 70 off 41 balls on Sunday.
De Kock has been watching from the bench for more than a month. Kyle Mayers and Nicholas Pooran’s early arrival in the IPL, coupled by their brilliant batting displays, have played a big role in keeping De Kock out of the starting XI of the Lucknow Super Giants.
It took KL Rahul being injured for the Gautam Gambhir-mentored team to give De Kock a go at the top of the order. De Kock was not even the first-choice replacement for Rahul.
That was Manan Vohra — a decision many South Africans and cricket lovers around the world would have questioned. When the Vohra experiment failed last week, Lucknow looked to the experienced De Kock and the South African brought his A game.
It was a vintage display from De Kock, with the added motivation to make a statement in an effort to remind the world of what he can do with bat in hand.
In pursuit of a mammoth 228 runs set by David Miller’s Gujarat Titans, De Kock and opening partner Mayers, who initially had majority of the strike, took an aggressive approach.
De Kock took little time to read the wicket and get himself in. Instead, the SA wicketkeeper-batsman brought his brand of carnage to the Gujarat bowlers. Last week, Mohammed Shami returned figures of 4/11 against the Dehli Capitals to prove he is by no means an easy bowler to face but De Kock made light work of his bowling on Sunday.
The stylish left-hander hit two fours in Shami’s second over and from there on, he put his feet on the accelerator and raced to a 31-ball half-century. He hardly celebrated the milestone as the massive total still loomed large.
It did not matter, however, which Gujarat bowler he faced. Regardless of whether it was Rashid Khan, Hardik Pandya or Mohit Sharma — De Kock did not stop attacking. On 70 he looked set for a century, his second in the Lucknow jersey. Khan had other ideas however as he bowled De Kock behind his legs, a decision that had to go to the third umpire to review whether the ball hit the stumps or if it was the wicket-keeper who took the bails off.
Nevertheless, De Kock certainly impressed and despite the eventual 56-run loss it is hard to see how he will be left out of the XI again. The third-placed Lucknow take on Sunrisers Hyderabad on Saturday away from home.
Sport
