Quinton de Kock won’t be Test captain – Graeme Smith

Cricket South Africa recently appointed Director of Cricket, Graeme Smith has confirmed that white ball skipper Quinton de Kock will not be the Test captain of the side. Smith, who was himself one of the best captains in the Test fold, stated that they currently don’t have any name in their mind.

Meanwhile, former South African Test skipper Faf du Plessis had relinquished his duties in February. The Proteas had lost a Test series at home to England by 3-1 after they were hammered by India in India and du Plessis was left with not too many options. In fact, the right-hander’s own form with the bat was plummeting and his resignation was always on the cards.

On the other hand, Quinton de Kock was passed on the captaincy baton for ODI and T20I side. Many teams have different captains for different formats and South Africa are also looking to go down the same route.

When Smith was asked who is going to take over as Test captain, Cricket South Africa’s director of cricket, he said: “The one definitive answer that I can give you is that it’s not going to be Quinton. I can’t tell you who it’s going to be. We’re in a debate over it, and a strategy. There’s no one person we could pinpoint right now and say that’s the guy.”

“There are a lot of players on a similar level. The challenge, when we do play some cricket, will be to see who steps out and escalates themselves into really consistent performers.

The former South African skipper made it clear that the decision has been taken to manage the workload of Quinton de Kock. It is not easy to keep the wickets and lead the side in all the three forms of the game. Thus, Smith has decided not to put excess pressure on the wicket-keeper batsman.

Meanwhile, Quinton de Kock has done well for the Proteas over the years in all the three forms of the game. The southpaw has scored 2934 runs in 47 Test matches at an average of 39.12. The left-hander has mostly batted with the lower order and he is aggressive in his batting approach as he has a strike rate of 70.96.

However, with de Kock out of the captaincy contention, there aren’t many promising options for Cricket South Africa. The Test team is in rebuilding state with senior players like AB de Villiers, Hashim Amla and Dale Steyn have already retired. Ergo, it won’t be a surprise if a young player is handed over the captaincy reins just like Graeme Smith was given the onus.

Written by: Gautam Chauhan