Know baby faced Quinton de Kock, a new prodigy on horizon

New Delhi: Quinton de Kock, a twenty years old South African batsman, has joined likes of Zaheer Abbas (Pakistan) Saeed Aawar (Pakistan), Herchell Gibbs (South Africa) and AB de Villiers (South Africa) to score three hundreds in a row. Interestingly he doesn't have a single fifty so far in ODI.On 5th December 2013, the day Nelson Mandela took his last breath in Johannesburg, De Kock scored a brilliant century knock of 135 against India in the same city, his home ground. This knock guided the team to a massive 141-run victory over India and he was awarded his first ever 'Man of the Match' award in One Day International cricket. He followed his performance with another successive ODI ton in the next match against the same team in Durban. He scored a knock of 106 runs making a record-breaking opening stand of 194 in Durban with fellow team-mate Hashim Amla.And in the third ODI in Centurian, he again hit a ton (101) and most probably would bag the man of the series by the time ODI series with India gets over.Lets have a look at his phenomenon rise. A wicketkeeper-batsman he has represented his country at Under-19 level & currently plays for the senior team at international level.De Kock studied in King Edward VII School in Johannesburg, the same school where Graeme Smith and Neil McKenzie also had studied before. He was spotted as a schoolboy talent and used to play for the affiliate club Old EdsFrom that time, he was being considered as one of the best emerging young batsmen in South Africa. In 2012 ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup, he scored 95 off 131 balls in their first campaign against Bangladesh in the match they won by 133 runs. In the second match against Namibia, he scored 126 off 106 balls and they won it also by a massive 209 runs.In the quarter-final match against England, although de Kock scored only 7 runs, but performed well standing behind the wickets with 5 dismissals (2 stumpings, 3 catches). They won the match by 103 runs. de Kock also scored a brilliant 50 during the 3rd place match of the tournament against New Zealand where they won by 8 wickets and emerged as the 3rd placed team in the tournament. He scored total 284 runs throughout the tournament and became the fourth highest run-getter there.De Kock came to the spotlight after scoring a brilliant 51 not out off 33 balls in their first match for South African Highveld Lions against Mumbai Indians in Champions League Twenty20, 2012 in Johannesburg. While chasing 158, after an early breakdown, he along with the experienced Neil McKenzie took the team home with brilliant knocks.Although he failed to keep this consistency in the remaining matches, he came to the spotlight after this tournament.De Kock was bought for $20,000 by IPL team Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL players' auction on 3 February 2013 to play for the 2013 IPL Season. But he failed to impress in IPL-6 when he got chances in the Sunrisers Hyderabad squad.In November 2013, he was selected in the first XI of South Africa against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates in place of Colin Ingram who was dropped for going through a bad form. De Kock scored a match winning knock of 112 off 135 balls on a tough batting track in Abu Dhai in the fourth ODI to reach his maiden One Day International century. South Africa won the ODI series 4-1. They also played two T20 games against Pakistan. De Kock scored 48 not out in the first match while chasing and took them home. They won that T20 series too by 2-0.