Continuing his impressive run in the 2024 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Tuesday, South Africa’s Quinton de Kock played a sensational knock for Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) against hosts Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. Opening the innings for KL Rahul’s LSG after RCB won the toss and invited the visitors to bat, Proteas batter De Kock smashed a quickfire half-century to help the Super Giants post a challenging total .
Filed on 32 by Glenn Maxwell, The cooker completed his half-century in 36 balls. The former Mumbai Indians batter notched his 22nd half-century for the visitors. The LSG fly-half also achieved several records with his entertaining shot against the Virat Kohli-star side. The Lucknow Super Giants keeper-batsman has completed 3,000 runs in the world’s richest T20 league – the IPL.
Quinton de Kock joins AB de Villiers as exclusive club
De Kock achieved the feat while playing his 99th match in the IPL. The Proteas batter is the 23rd player to achieve 3,000 runs in the T20 tournament. He also joined AB de Villiers (5162 runs) and Faf du Plessis (4179) in the three-member list of South African batters with 3,000 runs in the IPL.
Batting at a strike rate of 144.54, De Kock creamed eight fours and smoked five sixes against RCB. The South African batter ended up scoring 81 off 56 balls in the high-scoring encounter. While De Kock top-scored for LSG, West Indies power-hitter Nicholas Pooran remained unbeaten on 40 off 21 balls. Pooran’s crucial cameo propelled LSG to 181-5 in 20 overs.
“Abandoned catches cost RCB”
RCB’s Maxwell has become the choice of bowlers. The RCB spinner scored two wickets and dropped 23 runs in his four overs. “The plan was to keep it simple and wait for a mistake. It’s probably going to be a tough chase because it’s (rebound) a little inconsistent, we have to be at our best. I felt like we had gave a lot of easy boundaries early on and we wanted to have some energy and a wicket. The dropped catches cost us dearly. I think it’s two pacers so we need to be at our best. Hopefully those who start can continue,” Maxwell said during the innings break.