Why is Quinton de Kock not playing today’s 2nd T20I between India and South Africa in Cuttack?

Why Quinton de Kock not playing today: The visitors have had to make a couple of forced changes to their Playing XI for this match.

During the second T20I of the ongoing South Africa’s tour of India in Cuttack, South Africa captain Temba Bavuma has won the toss and chose to bowl.

“We will have a bowl first. We don’t know how the wicket will play. It was easier to bat second in the last game. You can chase anything with smaller boundaries. You need to stay in the fight as batters,” Bavuma told Star Sports at the toss.

Much like Bavuma, India captain Rishabh Pant also wanted to bowl first at the Barabati Stadium tonight. With India batting first for the second time in a row in as many matches of this series, Pant aimed at posting another “big score”.

“We would have bowled first as well. The track is really nice. We would want to have a big score on this. There weren’t many things we did wrong in the last game, just a bit of execution was off and we will do better today,” Pant told Star Sports at the toss.

Why is Quinton de Kock not playing today vs India?

The visitors have made a couple of changes to their Playing XI in spite of coming on the back of a record chase in the first T20I in Delhi. Wicket-keeper batter Quinton de Kock and batter Tristan Stubbs have had to forcefully miss this match and have been replaced by batter Reeza Hendricks and wicket-keeper batter Heinrick Klaasen.

“We have two forced changes; QDK [Quinton de Kock] has a hand injury and [Tristan] Stubbs misses out. [Heinrich] Klaasen and [Reeza] Hendricks come in,” Bavuma said.

While de Kock had scored 22 (18) in a 212-run chase on Thursday, Stubbs didn’t get to bat. As far as the incoming players are concerned, Hendricks and Klaasen will be playing their 41st (fourth in India) and 29th (first in India) T20I respectively tonight.