South Africa white-ball skipper Temba Bavuma has welcomed Quinton de Kock back into the squad. Notable that Quinton de Kock announced a sudden retirement from Test cricket last month as the wicketkeeper was going for paternity leave after playing the first test against India at Centurion.
Quinton de Kock played 54 Tests and scored 3300 runs with 6 hundreds and he also had 232 dismissals as wicketkeeper.
Quinton de Kock announced retirement from Test cricket at the age of 29
“It is good to see Quinny again. We obviously miss him in the Test team. He has made his decision (to quit) and it is a decision that we respect. Having Quinny again within team is good. Knowing Quinny, he will have a point to prove,” Bavuma said
“I am sure he is also as excited as we are, to be in the team,” added Bavuma in response to a question on how was it like to have de Kock back in the team after the drama surrounding his retirement from Tests in the middle of the series against India,” he added.
Quinton de Kock is a key member of South Africa’s white-ball set-up. He has already scored 16 hundreds in 124 ODI matches. In his last ODI, he scored a hundred against Ireland in July. Before that, he played a match-winning hand 80(86) against Pakistan at Johannesburg.
Bavuma also emphasized the fact to play spin to succeed against India. Notable that India beat the hosts by 5-1 in the last ODI series in 2018.
“Preparation has been happening for the past year actually. The positive result the guys displayed in Sri Lanka during the series there last year. You must have seen in the T20 WC as well. Coming up against India, spin bowling is a strength of them, we will try to prepare as well as we can to mitigate that,” Bavuma stated.
Bavuma believes that South Africa will carry the confidence of test series win. South Africa beat the visitors by 2-1 in the match series as India were chasing their series win after a 1-0 lead at Centurion.
“Yeah, look the Test series went well for the team and me. I think the feet seemed to move well. I would like to carry on with the same feeling. To be honest I have been doing the same things. Maybe it is just a period of good form for me. At the moment, my feet are moving quite well and I am hitting the ball quite well,” he concluded.
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