De Kock steals RCB's thunder

Opener slams maiden IPL ton

When Royal Challengers Bangalore’s Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers went about composing another sizzling duet, the near-capacity audience at the Chinnaswamy Stadium must have felt they had already witnessed the best show of the night.

The duo, regular highlight performers for their club and country, conjured another gem, blasting half-centuries as the RCB coasted to 191/5. However, their blistering act was put to shade by Delhi Daredevils’ Quinton de Kock.

Aged 23 and considered one of the most dangerous wicketkeeper-batsmen in world cricket, the South African was at his best on a beauty of a batting track, cracking a splendid 51-ball 108 as the Daredevils chased down RCB’s total with plenty to spare.

Despite his first two partners falling cheaply, the opener staged a stunning assault on the pedestrian RCB attack. Strong square of the wicket, the Protean simply ‘cut’ open RCB in the initial part of his innings before switching to the on-side as the hosts stood bewildered.

“Wonderful, especially the way he handled the spinners,” Kohli said of de Kock’s pulsating innings. “It always helps as a wicketkeeper when you see the pace of the wicket. That shows game awareness and he is a top quality player. He has been doing really well for South Africa in the international circuit. On pitches that assist the batsmen he is a very dangerous player, to come forward and attack the bowlers and that is pretty evident the way he plays as well. Credit to him he targeted the areas and targeted the bowlers. He was game aware which we lacked in the last four overs of our innings.”

De Kock, who has hammered 10 ODI centuries in just 57 appearances for South Africa, said he relishes playing such match-winning innings. “I enjoyed the innings thoroughly. I won’t say this was my best but it was up there. Especially chasing down a total like that, I haven’t done it often. I haven’t, so to do that, I enjoyed it quite a lot.

“I wasn’t thinking much, just standing there and playing the ball as I saw it, play the ball on merit. I knew the wicket was really good. Upfront you just had to stand tall and hit through the line. And chasing, we were very confident, 190 was par on that wicket. We thought we were going to chase 250 at one stage, so we were very confident going in. We knew all we had to do was save wickets for the end and try and capitalise on the bowling attack in the end.”

While saying that he hasn’t been practicing much -- batting wise -- for IPL other than a 10-minute nets session, de Kock heaped praise on Karun Nair who cracked an unbeaten 52 to make things easier for him. “When he came in, there were a couple of dot balls. I just asked him to stay relaxed as there might be a problem if one us gets dismissed. I told him to just stick with me, and then, well, we just batted. We went all the way. Obviously, I stuck with him. I lost my wicket in the end but (the game) was over (by then).”