De Kock converts his farewell into a fairy tale

Cricket World Cup

“DE KOCK Please don’t retire after this World Cup.”

A spectator in the MCA Pavilion at the Wankhede Stadium here held a hand-written poster during Tuesday’s World Cup tie between South Africa and Bangladesh.

Considering the dream run that Quinton de Kock has had in this edition so far, calls for him to reverse his decision to retire from ODIs after the World Cup could get louder after Sunday’s Rugby World Cup final.

Now that de Kock has topped the run-scoring charts, thanks to his three hundreds in five innings including Tuesday’’ record-breaking 174, the retirement talk has perhaps taken a back-seat, at least for the South Africa change-room.

“It’s easy to score a hundred and then sort of take a back seat, but every single day that that he comes to training and the games that he has played so far, you know, scoring three hundreds in five innings is a pretty special effort,” Jean-Paul Duminy, South Africa’s batting coach, said on Tuesday.

“Knowing the character that he is, he is certainly not going to rest on that. He has got great ambitions to go all the way and be a real strong performer for the team.”

Aiden Markram, the South Africa stand-in captain during its back-to-back wins in Mumbai, stressed that de Kock is valued by the group much more than his exploits on the field.