De Kock is now ‘Jeet’s Bunny’

‘JEET’S Bunny’ – it may not roll off the tongue quite like ‘Big Bird’s Bunny’ the moniker once attached to Kepler Wessels when he fell once too often to West Indies great Joel ‘Big Bird’ Garner, but with the same bowler dismissing him for the fourth time in succession, that’s what Quinton de Kock now is – ‘Jeet’s Bunny.’

Jeetan Patel knows it too. He swapped a ‘high four’ with, Jeet Raval upon dismissing De Kock, with a classic piece of off-spin bowling on day four of the Test. From around the wicket he flighted one that pitched fractionally outside the left-hander’s leg stump, spun viciously past the outside edge and crashed into De Kock’s off-stump.

“That’s four,” he told teammates as they gathered around to congratulate him.

Nought, 6,10, 4 – that’s the run of scores for De Kock since Patel was somewhat surprisingly called into the New Zealand team in the middle of the ODI series.

In all four of those innings, De Kock’s faced a total of 25 deliveries from Patel and scored just eight runs against him. To say De Kock’s been all at sea against the 36-yearold off-spinner would be an exaggeration. He has though, especially in the Dunedin Test, been circumspect – way more than we’ve come to expect from him.

De Kock’s a free flowing player and regardless of the opponent, especially this summer, he’s shown an ability to give the South African innings a boost, changing tempo and thereby creating time for the bowlers to do their thing.

There’ve been comparisons with Adam Gilchrist – from Australians – and he’s arguably one of the hottest properties in the game right now.

By contrast Patel’s career is closer to the end than the beginning, and it was something of wildcard choice by the Black Caps selectors to toss him into the fray. Like Australia and Sri Lanka this season, New Zealand too were struggling to keep a hold on De Kock. He scored three consecutive half-centuries against them in the ODIS and none of those in the squad, especially after the trouncing New Zealand took in Wellington, looked capable of stopping him. The questions were thrown around and the answer was Jeetan Patel.

He duly dismissed De Kock first ball in the fourth ODI. It took him six deliveries to do so in the fifth One-dayer and suddenly he became an option for the Tests.

While De Kock was no doubt high on the list of danger men marked down by the Kiwi strategists, the fact that there are five left-hand batsmen in the South African team for the first Test played a part too. A bowler who takes the ball away from the batsmen is a valued asset and in this case, for these opponents, Jeetan Patel was the man.

His Test career has spanned 11 years but the Dunedin match is only his 22nd for the Black Caps.