When Quinton de Kock started carting the Royal Challengers Bangalore bowlers in front of a partisan crowd, the giant screen at the M Chinnaswamy stadium in Bangalore flashed 'From de Kock, with love.' The love for taking attacks apart was quite apparent.
Delhi Daredevils were chasing 192 on a beautiful batting track and the wicketkeeper batsman was reminding the crowd about what he can do with the bat in hand. His innings ensured there was no wobble as such throughout the innings as the visitors cantered to an easy seven-wicket win.
The Daredevils lost Shreyas Iyer in the first over and then Sanju Samson for nine. Unfazed by all this, de Kock kept peppering the boundary to keep his side's chase alive. The last year or so have been far from perfect for de Kock. He was dropped from the Test squad for the series in India last year - a move that he feels saved his Test career. The batsman scored 318 runs at an average of 63.60 in the preceding five-match One-Day International series that South Africa won 3-2.
Subsequently, he made his way back into the team. He then picked up a knee injury and was forced to miss a number of matches. He finally got a consistent run in the South African Twenty20 International team in the three-match series against Australia at home just before the ICC World T20.
De Kock came into his own in the World T20 - giving the team brisk starts in three of the four matches he played. He followed it up with an unbeaten 59 against Kings XI Punjab to help Delhi Daredevils seal their first win of the season just when it looked like it was going to be the same old story for the franchise this season as well.
Arguably the best chaser in cricket at the moment, Virat Kohli, too was impressed by the way de Kock paced his innings. "It was wonderful. Especially the way he handled the spinners. He waited for the ball nicely and it also helps as a wicketkeeper when you see the pace of the wicket. That also shows game awareness," the Bangalore captain said.
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