De Kock is ton master – yet again

QUINTON de Kock showed he belongs among the Protea’s elite yesterday when hammering his third consecutive One-Day International century against India at Centurion. As Mohammed Shami ran in to bowl, anticipation rippled through the crowd: De Kock was 99 not out. He darted down the pitch and pulled the trigger on a roundhouse pull that brought his bat level with the ground but at shoulder level. An ugly bottom edge thudded into the pitch and went nowhere. For the watching Herschelle Gibbs, that was a good thing: “Look at that! He’s not even interested in stats. Other guys would have played a more conservative shot, but he wants to do something different.” Shami’s next delivery was short and on the left-hander’s legs. He swivelled and deftly dabbed it towards square leg for the fateful single. In the space of those two balls, we saw the impatience of De Kock’s youth – he turns 21 on Tuesday – and evidence of his continued growth towards the finished product. Yesterday’s performance made De Kock the fifth player to score centuries in three successive one-day internationals. It is a club that, so far, has restricted its membership to South Africans and Pakistanis –...