FE Team
| Published: 01 November 2023 21:25:20
PUNE, India, November 1 (Agencies): South Africa’s Quinton de Kock reached his fourth World Cup century in the match against fellow title hopefuls New Zealand on Wednesday.
The left-handed opener reached his 21st career one-day international ton off 103 balls with eight fours and three sixes. He brought up his century with a huge six off Jimmy Neesham as the Proteas reached 205-1 in 36 overs.
De Kock also made 100 against Sri Lanka, 109 in the match against Australia and 174 in the victory against Bangladesh. He started the day with just 69 more runs to go past 500 for the tournament when the Proteas were sent into bat in Pune.
After completing a fifty from 62 balls, including three fours and two sixes, De Kock crossed the 500-run barrier with a leg-side boundary off recalled pacer Tim Southee.
With this, de Kock equaled Kumar Sangakarra for four hundreds in a single World Cup edition – the second highest by a batter. The Sri Lankan hit four tons in the 2015 edition.
Rohit Sharma tops the list with five hundreds in the 2019 World Cup. Mark Waugh, Sourav Ganguly and Matthew Hayden occupy the third spot with three tons each.
De Kock’s innings was also his highest score against the Kiwis in One-Day Internationals. In this innings, he surpassed Jacques Kallis’ record for the most runs by a South African batter in a single World Cup edition. The 30-year-old, who will retire from one-day international cricket at the end of this tournament, tops the World Cup rankings ahead of Australia’s David Warner (413) and New Zealand’s Rachin Ravindra (406). ).
Meanwhile, South Africa once again put up a dominant show by batting first in the ODI World Cup 2023 match. Playing at the Maharashtra Cricket Association in Pune, South Africa destroyed the he New Zealand bowling attack, with two astonishing centuries from Quinton de Kock and Rassie van der Dussen.
This took South Africa’s century tally to 8, the highest in the tournament’s history, as they tied Sri Lanka in the 2015 edition of the ODI World Cup. South Africa’s batting team has been in stunning form in India and, apart from their failure against the Netherlands, they have generally put in terrific performances.
De Kock’s 103-ball century helped South Africa reach a total of over 300 while batting first in the 2023 World Cup. Apart from de Kock, Rassies van der Dussen also spoke about his second century in the tournament, hitting his century off 101 balls. Besides de Kock and van der Dussen’s combined six centuries, South Africa saw two formidable hundreds from Aiden Markram and Heinrich Klaasen.
Heinrich Klaasen’s quick century came against England on October 21 at the Wankhede Stadium. A total of eight centuries would have meant there were some big hits from the South African batting department. South Africa have now broken the record for the most six touchdowns by a team in a single edition of the tournament. David Miller, batting in the 46th innings, hit two consecutive sixes off Glenn Phillips to cross 76 sixes – a record held by England in the 2019 edition of the tournament. Temba Bavuma’s team eventually ended their innings with 357 runs for the loss of 4 wickets – their fourth total of 350+ in the tournament.
