The Leading Edge

Lost: De Kock's genius. Reward offered for its safe return

11 February 2018 - 00:00 By Telford Vice

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see." Arthur Schopenhauer, the 19th century German philosopher who said that, didn't pay heed to frivolities like cricket.
But it's a pity he's no longer around: Quinton de Kock could use that kind of thinking, especially in the apparent absence of anything constructive being done to haul him out of the depths of the deepest slump he has known since being capped at international level more than six years ago.
Good thing this is a column, because that opinion isn't supported by the facts.
De Kock has gone 17 completed innings, whatever the format and level of cricket, without scoring 50, and 20 without making a century.
Nine of those trips to the crease without breaking 50 and a dozen without a hundred have been for South Africa.
Sounds serious, but it took him 13 innings at the start of his international career to celebrate a half-century, and he has had other 50-less slumps of nine and 10 innings each.
He has known stretches of 16, 18, 22 and 25 completed innings for South Africa without scoring a century, although during the latter he was thrice in the 90s.
So, by the numbers, there is nothing especially alarming about De Kock's dawdle into the doldrums...

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