(Image source: X.com)
[Saba Sports News] South Africa opener Quinton de Kock has been in magnificent form since the start of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023. He has smashed three centuries in the ongoing event. His latest century came against Bangladesh in 101 balls on Tuesday in the 23rd match of the tournament, played at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
Against the Bangla Tigers, de Kock hammered 174 runs off 140 balls with the help of 15 fours and seven sixes, achieving a strike rate of 124.29. He is now the leading run-scorer in the World Cup 2023, having gathered 407 runs in five innings at an average of 81.40.
Notably, the hundred against Bangladesh was de Kock’s 20th ODI century and his third ton in the ODI World Cup, all of them occurring in this tournament in India. Interestingly, he is playing his third and final ODI World Cup but he didn’t score a single century in the previous two editions.
The wicketkeeper-batter has now become the second Proteas player with the most ODI World Cup centuries, following AB de Villiers, who scored World Cup tons in his carrer.
The southpaw also joined the elite list of players with the most centuries in a single ODI World Cup edition. He now sits close to Rohit Sharma (5 centuries in 2019), Kumar Sangakkara (4 centuries in 2015), Mark Waugh (3 centuries in 1996), Sourav Ganguly (3 centuries in 2003), Matthew Hayden (3 centuries in 2007) and David Warner (3 centuries in 2019).
De Kock has scored five fifty-plus scores in ODIs in India, and he converted all of them into centuries. The Johannesburg-born now has three ODI World Cup hundreds to his name as a designated wicket-keeper, which is the second-most by any gloveman after Sangakkara (5).
He now has the highest score for a designated wicket-keeper in the World Cup history, surpassing Adam Gilchrist’s 149 in the 2007 final against Sri Lanka.