Ashwell Prince elaborates on de Kock’s influence in SA ODI side, equals it to Rohit and Kohli’s influence in India.
Ashwell Prince: De Kock’s presence has ‘similar effect’ as Rohit and Kohli’s.
In his second season as an ODI player, Quinton de Kock has already enjoyed himself a little. He made himself available for South Africa earlier this year after initially retiring following the World Cup in 2023. He had a successful run in Pakistan, hitting 239 runs at an average of 119.5 in three games.
“I think he’s big, he’s massive,” South Africa batting coach Ashwell Prince said. “With Rohit [Sharma] and Virat [Kohli] coming to the Indian team, I think Quinny probably has a similar effect coming into our team with his experience, with his quality that we saw in Pakistan.
“His presence definitely boosted the dressing room and we got quite a few young left-handers and just quite a few young players in the team. For them to sit around and have a few conversations with him and also be out with him in the middle and bat with him, I think that does a lot for their growth – being able to bat with him out in the middle. So he is a big influence for us.”
After the all-rounder was instrumental in their 2-0 victory over India in the Test series, South Africa is also eager to see what heights Marco Jansen may achieve. Key components of Jansen’s performance in Guwahati were broken down by Prince: 93 off 91 with the bat and 6 for 48 with the ball.
“I think what’s important for Marco is clarity about how he bats. When you’re batting at No. 8, No. 9, generally you don’t have a lot of partners. So for him… once he gets in, he needs to score quickly, because he’s only got one or two partners to come. So playing an aggressive role is something that we discussed.
And then to follow that up with the ball in the way that he did. Again, we talk about assessing the conditions. When we come to India, we don’t expect the pitches to bounce as much as that one did. So we assess this communication between our batters and our bowlers. And our batter’s feedback was that the bounce is quite steep. Maybe we should look to use the bounce more than what we anticipated. And the bounce was quite steep and it was difficult to handle… Therefore, we say adapting to what is in front of us is the most important thing.”