Herschelle Gibbs wants Quinton de Kock dropped: The former South African batter has suggested a bold change for the second T20I.
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Unlike their first tour of India 2022, South Africa have failed to start their second tour of India this year on a winning note. South Africa, who had managed to win the first two of five T20Is in June, lost the first of three T20Is in the ongoing series.
Playing at the Greenfield International Stadium for the first time last night, South Africa could never recover from losing five wickets for nine runs within the first 15 balls bowled in the match.
Chasing a 107-run target, India cruised to an 8-wicket victory on the back of a match-winning 93-run third-wicket partnership between vice-captain KL Rahul and batter Suryakumar Yadav.
Herschelle Gibbs wants Quinton de Kock dropped for Reeza Hendricks in Guwahati T20I
Former South Africa batter Herschelle Gibbs took to social media platform Twitter around an hour ago to share a couple of major differences between the two sides in the first match yesterday.
Gibbs, 48, pointed out how South African bowlers were found deficient in swinging the new ball like their Indian counterparts and how the visiting batters didn’t play the conditions smarter like Rahul and Yadav.
Not stopping at that, Gibbs also put forward a bold change for the second T20I stating that wicket-keeper batter Quinton de Kock should be replaced by opening batter Reeza Hendricks.
difference in yesterdays t20 🇿🇦v🇮🇳 was Indian bowlers swung it ours didn’t and their batters played conditions smarter..reeza in for quinny next game.
— Herschelle Gibbs (@hershybru) September 29, 2022
Having actively responded to queries on his tweet, Gibbs highlighted de Kock “not making runs” especially since his Test retirement as a rationale behind him needing to be left out. Asked about who would keep in de Kock’s absence, Gibbs nominated Heinrich Klaasen’s name. If South Africa are to believe Gibbs’ advice, they will have to make another change in the middle-order to accommodate Klaasen.
It is noteworthy that Hendricks is South Africa’s highest T20I run-scorer in the last 12 months scoring 379 runs in 11 innings at an average and strike rate of 34.45 and 132.51 respectively.
de Kock, on the other hand, has managed just 137 runs in 12 innings at an average and strike rate of 11.41 and 101.48 respectively. Since his Test retirement on New Year’s eve, de Kock has scored 68 runs in eight innings at a strike rate of 95.77 to not even be among the Top 50 wicket-keeper batters in this format.
