South African captain Quinton de Kock earned the praise of his coach Mark Boucher when the latter said that he has a ‘very smart cricketing brain.’
ESPN Cricinfo quoted Boucher as saying “We always knew that Quinny has got a very smart cricketing brain. He had a couple of different field placings which I thought were good and he was thinking out of the box.”.
Boucher also said that the wicket-keeper/batsman leads his team quite well and has a good understanding of the game.
He said, “Quinny enjoys being in the game. Sometimes he sits in the dressing room during Test-match cricket and he gets really irritated because he wants to be doing something all the time.”
“I think he really enjoys it. The off-the-field stuff is the stuff that might get to him a bit. We’re going to have to help him in that regard. But certainly, on the field, he leads well.”
South Africa faced a two-wicket defeat in the third ODI against England on Sunday. The three-match series ended at 1-1.
When talking about Faf du Plessis, Boucher admitted that he is ‘still one of our best T20 players.’ However, Boucher asserted that the player needs a break from the stresses of cricket every now and then, and does not need to worry about constantly being at the top of his form.
“Faf is still one of our best T20 players. We feel at this point in time he needs a bit of a break away from the game. It’s always good to have a bit of a rest. There is going to be a lot of cricket for them leading up to a World Cup so any opportunity we get to give guys a bit of rest and give other guys opportunities to see what they’re all about,” he said.
South Africa and England will face each other off in a three-match T20I series that starts from February 12.
