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WATCH: Don’t block Quinton de Kock says Aiden Markram

Dudley Carstens|Published

Solid foundation: ‘Free spirit’ Quinton de Kock.Picture credit: Francis Mascarenhas

Quinton de Kock must just be allowed to fly freely according to Proteas stand-in captain Aiden Markram.

De Kock has been on fire in India at the Cricket World Cup to date, scoring three hundreds in five innings and totalling 407 runs at an average of 81 - the latest of his tons being the 174 runs he scored when SA klapped Bangladesh by 149 runs Tuesday.

Of his opener who will retire from ODI cricket at the end of the World Cup and how he fits into their game plan, Markram says: “We all know Quinton to be the free-spirited guy that he is, but he actually has a fantastic cricket brain on him.

“So, he assesses conditions really well and communicates that to us off the field even before we’ve walked out to bat. So, it adds a lot of value in that regard.

“And then you never want to clip his wings really. You just want to let him fly. He structures it the exact way he feels needed, and we back that completely as a unit.

“So, yeah, that’s where we’re at. I think, like I mentioned, we focus on conditions, we focus on really trying to take good options and wherever that leaves us at the end of it, if that thinking was nice and solid, then we can sleep pretty well at night.”

Supportive: Aiden Markram.Picture credit: Cricket world twitter

South Africa have been on fire batting first in the competition to date, but questions are being asked of their chasing game - with their only defeat to date coming when they failed to hunt down Netherlands’ 245/8.

But Markram is min gespin, saying: “We’ve batted first quite a bit, so I think it’s quite easy to get that mantra of ‘they're a bat-first team’. But we’re a team that is happy to chase…”

The Proteas next tackle Pakistan on Friday.

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