Should SA have rested freshly back in form De Kock?

“The guys get rested too easily these days. He’s only 26 years old - yes, he should be playing for sure.” - Herschelle Gibbs

TMG Digital

TELFORD VICE in London

SEPTEMBER. That’s the only full month since South Africa’s tour to Sri Lanka in July that Quinton de Kock hasn’t played any cricket.

He’s been involved in 29 games in the past seven months; six if you don’t count September.

We can’t blame the Indian Premier League (IPL) this time: all those matches were for South Africa and the Cape Town Blitz.

As a wicketkeeper, De Kock’s work is a long way from done even if he gets out first ball. In the five Tests he has played since July alone he has been on the field for around 3 650 minutes.

That’s almost 61 hours spent crouching behind the stumps or tapping a bat at the crease.

Add the 24 white-ball games, all the hours of training and being trapped in airplanes, and it’s not difficult to see the argument in favour of South Africa deciding to rest De Kock for the first two one-day internationals against Pakistan.

Thing is, he spent the most recent 228 minutes at the crease, in the third Test at the Wanderers last weekend, scoring 129 — his first century for South Africa in any format in 39 innings since October 2017.

Will not playing at St George’s Park on Saturday and Kingsmead on Tuesday threaten his newly rediscovered form?

Now that he’s back on the bike shouldn’t he keep riding it?

Herschelle Gibbs didn’t leave room for doubt about what he thought: “The guys get rested too easily these days.

“He’s only 26 years old — yes, he should be playing for sure.

“Also, the Tests against Pakistan were done in three days. That’s plenty of days off.

“There’s no point resting him.”

South Africa beat Pakistan before tea on the third day at Centurion, only 9.5 overs into the fourth at Newlands, and after 25.4 overs of the fourth day at the Wanderers. The series lasted, effectively, less than 25 of the scheduled 45 sessions.

De Kock has, then, enjoyed a lighter workload in the past few weeks than he might have had Pakistan taken the game deeper.

That can’t hurt him in wear and tear terms. Neither can his two days off and the training and travel time he will avoid.

With an IPL coming and a World Cup to follow — and 10 games in all formats against Sri Lanka before that — it makes sense to keep the busiest players as fresh as possible.

Dale Steyn has also been put on ice for the Port Elizabeth and Durban matches. But he’s 35, has had a recent history of serious injury and will be worth more than his weight in gold in sheer presence for South Africa at the World Cup.

Whether someone as plainly fuelled by instinct as De Kock will be helped or hampered by being taken out of the mix is more difficult to know.

We should find out on Friday, when he is due back for the third ODI at Centurion.