It was a day when everything that Quinton de Kock did fell in place. Under pressure to score big and live up to his reputation as a premier opening batsman, especially as Lucknow Super Giants lost their previous two matches when they had a chance to seal their place in the top two, de Kock delivered in their last match.
A brilliant unbeaten 140 in an unseparated 210-run opening partnership with his skipper KL Rahul silenced all his detractors. Records kept tumbling as de Kock and Rahul went about their business, sending the Kolkata Knight Riders in a leather hunt.
Despite not scoring off 15 balls out of the 70 deliveries that he faced at DY Patil Stadium on Wednesday, de Kock reached 140. That means, from a mere 55 deliveries, he has scored all his runs to take him to his highest IPL score and the second three-figure mark after he made 108 for Delhi Capitals against Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2016). Exactly a hundred of his runs came from boundaries with equal number of fours and sixes – 10 each.
In scoring the sixth hundred of this IPL, the 29-year-old left-hander from Johannesburg also became the third centurion in IPL 2022 after Jos Buttler (Rajasthan Royals, three centuries) and his own opening partner, Rahul (2). However, his is the highest individual score in this edition, surpassing Buttler’s 116 against Delhi Capitals at Wankhede Stadium.
Purchased for ₹6.25Cr in this year’s IPL auctions, de Kock had a brilliant understanding with his skipper. De Kock was ready to play the attacking shots while Rahul played the anchoring part brilliantly. De Kock swung his bat beautifully, pulling handsomely, sweeping the spinners with maximum results, even a reverse sweep off Sunil Narine fetched him a six.
The ball flew in all directions, almost all from the middle of his bat. Rarely did the ball fly to the boundary off the edge. Even if it did, it was in the last over off Andre Russell, an attempted pull went to the third man boundary clear of the fielders.
De Kock was the man in the front throughout the innings. He reached his fifty off 36 balls. His liking towards KKR bowlers was evident from the fact that in his last five knocks against them, he has scored four half-centuries. On Tuesday, he took it to his personal best IPL score.
When he cut Russell for four, he reached his century in 59 balls with six fours and seven sixes, taking just 23 balls to reach his second fifty, and a further 11 to move from 101 to 140.
It was clearly de Kock’s day as immediately after changing his batting gloves to wicketkeeping gloves, he took a brilliant one-handed catch diving to his right to remove Venkatesh Iyer in the third ball of the KKR innings.
Finally, a wicket fell in the match after 20.3 overs and 210 runs scored, de Kock being at the centre of it all as LSG carved a two-run exciting victory.
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