'Felt like every ball was going to the boundary'

Quinton de Kock reckons he’s played better innings.

Even knocks that he's enjoyed more than plundering a career-high 178 from a bowling attack representing the reigning world ODI champions.

Report & Highlights: De Kock hammers Aussies in Centurion

But at the tender (by global cricket yardsticks) age of 23, he can’t remember a time with bat in hand when he’s played with as much unabashed freedom as he did during his two-hour, 113 ball masterpiece at Centurion last night.

In fact, de Kock admitted in the aftermath of his breathtaking effort that effectively decided the opening ODI in Centurion before the Australians quite realised it had been snatched from their grasp, he doesn’t have much of a recollection of the remarkable record that he superseded.

The 175 that fellow opener Herschelle Gibbs clubbed at The Wanderers a decade ago in what is universally celebrated (throughout South Africa, at least) as the greatest ODI ever played.

Which until last night, with Gibbs watching on from the sole grandstand clad in his customary television commentator’s garb of polo shirt, smart pants and rubber thongs, stood as the benchmark score by a Proteas batsman against Australia.

Not because de Kock dismissed Gibbs’s brutal innings in his team’s even more remarkable pursuit of an unprecedented Australian target of 434 in 2006 as a piece of historical irrelevance.

But because, like any cricket-crazy teenager as the precociously talented left-hander was on that February Sunday afternoon, he was off at a nearby park in his native Johannesburg playing a match with his mates.

"I was at a club game," de Kock said when asked for his recollections of Gibbs’s contribution to what will forever be known in the Rainbow Nation as 'the 434 game'.

"I remember that – I got back home and heard about it and just watched the highlights for an hour.

"I didn’t get to watch any of that game so that was unfortunate."

The fact that he set a new benchmark against the team that South Africans rate as their greatest cricket rivals – and could have set a new all-time record for the highest individual score by a South African in an ODI had he not been dismissed 15 runs shy of the game’s finish line – does not bother the uncomplicated wicketkeeper-batsmen.

Quick Single: The records that de Kock broke

Perhaps because on the compelling evidence he tendered against an admittedly below-par Australian attack, Gary Kirsten’s 20-year high watermark of 188 - scored against a far-less-credentialled UAE line-up in the 1996 World Cup – would appear to be his for the taking if he continues to front up against the new ball in the limited overs format.

"I’m not bothered about records, I’m just here to win the games," said de Kock, who has enjoyed a memorable month having celebrated his marriage to girlfriend Sasha Hurly in Mauritius last week.

"Records are just add-ons, just extras on the side.

"If I did (set a new benchmark last night), well ... lucky, I guess.

"It was the most free (flowing) knock that I’ve played.

"But I’ve played a couple of other knocks that I’ve enjoyed more, where I’ve had to work hard for the runs.

"Those are the type of knocks that I enjoy.

"I had to work hard for the runs today, but it was just my day I guess.

"The wicket was quite nice to play on, it allowed me to play my natural game.

"Hopefully there will be a couple more wickets like that in the series, then we can have some more fun."

If de Kock wasn’t prepared to talk up the merits of his astonishingly clean ball striking in the wake of his team’s clinical take down of Australia’s 9-294 – achieved with almost 15 overs to spare – then rival skipper Steve Smith stepped up to the plate.

"It was one hell of an innings,” said Smith, who was one of a number of Australians who rushed to congratulate de Kock upon his dismissal having watched – from an uncomfortably close distance – him smite 16 boundaries and a jaw-dropping 11 sixes.

Image Id: AA999BD9C3F5428DA1D0D01B9F9F2F33 Image Caption: Smith watches on as De Kock middles another one // Getty

"I thought we started off quite poorly with the ball, we gave him a few freebies to get away.

"We were a bit too short and a bit too wide at times.

"And from there it just looked like he got in a rhythm, and it felt like every ball was going to the boundary at one point."

Indeed, of the 113 balls that de Kock received, there was 86 that didn’t find their way to the fence.

But most tellingly, only 46 of those – less than half the deliveries he faced – produced no score at all.

If the Australians were searching for mitigating factors for their inability to contain the diminutive, doe-eyed opener it might have been found in the relative inexperience of their bowling line-up.

Of the five specialist (and one part-time) bowlers used to try and unsuccessfully quell the carnage, only allrounder Mitchell Marsh had played more than 25 ODIs for his country.

But even though he’s clocked up almost 100 limited-overs and 10 Test appearances since making his international debut in a T20 International against at Durban in 2012, de Kock is scarcely a global cricket veteran.

At 23, he is younger than every member of the Australia XI that took the field last night barring Travis Head, who ultimately ended de Kock’s knock with a diving catch where the opener was only ever going to offer a chance.

Near the boundary rope.

As Smith noted at match’s end, the greater culpability for the thumping loss at the start of the five-match ODI series lay with his batsmen – himself included, in bold type – who failed to play anything near the sort of innings that de Kock unleashed.

"I think our batting actually," Smith said when asked what aspect of the failure most disappointed him as a captain.

"We got a nice wicket to bat on and we gave some opportunities away.

"We got a lot of starts and nobody was able to go on and get a big score like Quinton de Kock did.

"So going forward it’s the responsibility of one of our top four (who combined scored less than de Kock) to post a big total, and if we do that then the team total is going to be big as well."

Not that the bowling group, which leaked runs at more than eight per over, escaped scrutiny for their efforts with the prospect that some might pay with their place in the team for game two on Sunday.

Bearing in mind that the auxiliary bowlers not used in last night’s match – seamers Joe Mennie and Chris Tremain – boast a sum total of zero international appearances between them.

But it’s the sort of high calibre opposition provided by de Kock and his fill-in opening partner Rilee Rossouw (63 from 45 balls in the absence through illness of Hashim Amla) that loomed large in the national selectors’ thinking when they named an essentially untried pace bowling attack for this Qantas Tour of South Africa.

"We’ve got a chance to see some guys and see how they react to pressure situations like that out there," Smith said.

"So it’s a good learning curve for them and hopefully our quicks can take a lot away from what happened tonight.

"All the bowlers at times just weren’t able to hit their areas like they normally do.

"So we’ve got to try and turn that around quickly or we’re going to see another display like that on Sunday."

In the second ODI to be played at – of all places to make visiting bowlers shudder – The Wanderers.