Quinton de Kock's last dance at the World Cup is South Africa's biggest hope

With 407 runs from 5 matches, Quinton de Kock is the leading run-scorer of the Cricket World Cup 2023.

With four 300+ totals in their five matches so far, including the highest score in Cricket World Cup history (428/5), South Africa have been by far the most entertaining team to watch. They have played a fierce and aggressive brand of cricket that has been difficult to stop and their batting has been ruthless.

The likes of Heinrich Klaasen, Aiden Markram, Rassie van der Dussen, and David Miller have done tremendously well, but leading them from the front is Quinton de Kock. In what is confirmed to be his ODI swansong, De Kock is playing the best cricket of his career and has racked up one-sixth (3 tons) of the tournament’s 18 centuries so far. He is the current leading run-scorer in the tournament with 407 runs from five matches and has a jaw-dropping average and strike rate of 81.40 and 114.97 respectively.

On Tuesday, Bangladesh were caught in the midst of the De Kock storm. On a competitive surface at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, de Kock found just the perfect balance between aggression and composure and stitched a fantastic innings of 174 off just 140 deliveries. Klaasen’s 90 at a strike rate of 180+ may have made the Bangladeshi bowling unit look like amateur net bowlers, but South Africa’s thumping win was built on the back of their wicket-keeper’s outrageous knock.

On a hot and sultry day in Mumbai, in his 150^th ODI, de Kock spent over three hours on field during his knock and tirelessly ran the 1s and 2s which contributed to over 41% of his total. He also seamlessly switched to power-hitting on the right occasions and slammed 15 boundaries and seven maximums. He also kept wickets later as Bangladesh got bowled out for 233, giving the Proteas a massive 149-run victory!

The back-to-back annihilation of England and Bangladesh has got South Africa’s World Cup campaign back on the right track following the debacle at the hands of Netherlands. They are now second in the table with the highest net run rate and look destined for the semi-finals.

De Kock has been the protagonist of their campaign and in the post-match press conference, stand-in skipper Markram spoke about how important it is for the team to give him the licence to fly.

"We all know Quinton to be the free-spirited guy that he is, but he actually has a fantastic cricket brain on him. And then you never want to clip his wings, really. You just want to let him fly. He structures it the exact way he feels (the) need, and we back that completely as a unit," he said.

A look at the record books and there’s no doubt that the left-hander is one of South Africa’s greatest exports. He is the most dominant South African opener in this format with a strike rate of over 100 and has the fifth-best ODI average. He has also scored 20 centuries for his country and is only behind Hashim Amla (27), AB De Villiers (25), and Herschelle Gibbs (21). Only four players - Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, and Joe Root - have made more runs than De Kock in ODIs since his debut in 2013.

Despite all his staggering achievements, De Kock is also a divisive figure in South Africa. During the T20 World Cup in 2021, he refused to take a knee in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and even told the team that he was willing to skip the match instead. He has also announced his retirement from Tests and will soon drop off from ODIs after the World Cup at just 30 in order to prioritise T20 money - something he has been very candid about in the press.

Questions of a lack of loyalty have surrounded him throughout his career. The player has also made no secret of him being a feisty character and his reputation of having tiffs with coaches and teammates extend to even the junior level.

Despite his failings on a personal level, on the cricket field there is no doubt that de Kock is an absolute genius. Only time will tell whether South Africa are able to shake off the tag of chokers and turn into champions in this year’s World Cup but if their in-form southpaw manages to take them all the way, not only will his shortcomings and misgivings be forgiven, he will also go down as probably the architect of the greatest triumph in Proteas cricket history.