King De Kock ascends the Proteas’ throne
KING Kallis’s reign is history. Long live king De Kock. Not even the precedents SA set in Hambantota yesterday could hide the fact that the careers of Jacques Kallis and Quinton de Kock are moving in opposite directions.
SA won the third one-day international by 82 runs to clinch their first series in the format in Sri Lanka, and to banish memories of the 4-1 hiding they took there last year. And that with a World Cup coming in February.
Stop right there, said AB de Villiers: “It’s not a World Cup but it’s a huge step in the right direction.
“We’ve learnt from our mistakes and come back a more experienced team.”
The 339/5 SA scored was their highest ODI total versus the Sri Lankans anywhere, and De Kock’s 128 was the biggest one-day innings by a South African against Sri Lanka.
Kallis’s score of four brought his total for the series to six runs — his lowest aggregate yet in the 72 ODI rubbers in which he has batted more than once.
Yesterday Kallis was pinned like a butterfly to a board by a slip-sliding, straight delivery from Rangana Herath that hit him low on the front pad. Kallis reviewed the decision but the wind that whipped savagely across the field took technology out of the equation.
De Kock had all the luck he needed. Two of the three boundaries he hit from the first five balls he faced came off the edge and he was dropped on 38.
But the rest of De Kock’s innings was an explosion of talent and confidence, particularly when he launched his booming drive. His fifth ODI 100 was also his fourth in six innings. Every time he has reached 50 he has gone on to three figures.
All of which relegated AB de Villiers’ 108 off 71 balls, many of them sent scything square of the wicket, to just another brilliant performance. McLaren’s 3/37 — which made him the highest wicket-taker in the series — was only a little less so.
The Sri Lankans had no answer to Hashim Amla and De Kock for 22 overs, and SA’s opening stand grew to 118 before Herath had Amla caught at long-off.
Kallis’s euthanasing brought De Villiers to the crease, and with him punishment for Sri Lanka. The party might have been ended when De Kock lifted a drive to long-off to halt the stand at 116, but JP Duminy helped De Villiers chuck on 80 runs for the fourth wicket.
Sri Lanka roared to 50 in five overs and to 100 in the 11th. But SA took them out of the game by removing Tillakaratne Dilshan, Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene in the space of 14 deliveries.
Only Angelo Mathews could get them home from there, but he fell for 58 to McLaren and a stunning catch at short fine leg by Morne Morkel re-imagined as the Statue of Liberty.
Amla tempered the celebrations with a warning: “The guys will enjoy each other’s company tonight; tomorrow the test preparations begin.”
Job done. Another awaits.