Quinton de Kock

Profile

As a 16-year old, Quinton de Kock appeared on South Africa's first-class arena when he made his debut for Gauteng in 2009. A left-handed batsman and wicketkeeper, de Kock also played for South Africa’s Under-19 side and was an important member in the 2012 ICC Under-19 World Cup in Townsville.

A gritty fifty in the third place play-off against New Zealand helped his team finish third in the tournament. Representing the Lions in their domestic T20 competition, he was added to their T20 squad for the Champions League in late 2012. Impressed by his performance, the selectors drafted him in South Africa's T20I side for the series against New Zealand the following year. de Kock eventually made his international debut in the first T20I. Later that year, he was picked in the Indian T20 League by the Hyderabad franchise.

The year 2013 brought out the best in him. He was picked in the ODI side as a replacement wicket-keeper for AB de Villers against New Zealand. Though his performance wasn't necessarily a stand out, there was a spark about this young kid and that made the selectors back him to the hilt. Late in the year, de Kock started to exhibit his true colours. Notching up his debut hundred in the ODIs against Pakistan, de Kock announced that he was finally ready to take the world by storm and that is what he did when the Indians came calling later in the year. In the three-match ODI series that followed, de Kock finished with a hundred in each of the three games amassing 342 runs, the most by any batsman in a three-match bilateral series. In 2014, de Kock was bought by the Delhi franchise to play for them in the seventh edition of the Indian T20 League. Barely out of his teens, age is definitely on the side of de Kock and if he stays fit and healthy, this kid could well be the next big thing in South Africa as well as international cricket.