SA Cricketer of the Year, Quinton de Kock wants to rectify the mistakes of not converting his many starts from last season by moving higher up in the batting rankings, writes Ongama Gcwabe.

For a man who has carried the nation on his shoulders the entire 2019/20 season, De Kock received the appreciation he deserved at the CSA awards on Saturday 4 July.

Besides his two centuries last season, one at home in ODI cricket against England and one in Test cricket against India in India, most of his other knocks were fifty-plus.

When asked about what he rates his ability, with 10 being having reached his full potential, De Kock answered boldly.

“I’m certainly at about 6.5 at the moment to be honest. I had too many starts and did not convert enough. I’d love to do better and convert my starts to bigger runs,” De Kock told members of the media in a virtual presser right after the awards ceremony.

“I actually enjoyed that extra responsibility. I know what I did wrong during this past season, I just want to rectify it for the next season. But towards the end of the season, you could see the amount of potential coming through.

“Guys like Janneman Malan, Heinrich Klaasen, Lungi after his injury coming through, Anrich Nortje and Temba, these guys themselves want that responsibility to be the best players in the world.

“It’s good to have that around. I don’t think it’s healthy in a team where people are dependent on one or two players. So it’s nice to have those guys come through to help out on occasion.”

Director of Cricket, Graeme Smith earlier in the year ruled De Kock out of the running for Test Captain as he was already given the responsibility in white-ball cricket. De Kock insists that he is happy with how the powers above dealt with that situation.

“Me and Bouch [Mark Boucher] we had a very informal chat, I told him: ‘I don’t know how I feel about being Test captain. That’s just too much for me to handle. I know that and I realized that’“, he said.

“I could see from a mile away that I didn’t need that on top of my shoulders. Obviously me wanting to come up the order I didn’t need that extra pressure. I’m pretty happy with the way they went about it.”

A man with the potential that Quinton has needs to bat higher up the order. Batting at seven in Test cricket doesn’t give him an opportunity to score big. As we saw in the last Test at the Wanderers, Boucher has plans to get him up the order.

“Me and him wanted to push me higher up in the batting rankings but obviously with team selections and stuff, it’s a little difficult. We finally got down to number five. I’m pretty happy at number five. That’s just for now, things can change,” he said.

“For now, at number five I was very comfortable there. I felt I could score big hundreds at that number. For now, I think that’s the place I need to bat.”

As the Proteas have gone back to training, De Kock emphasized the importance of the downtime that the lockdown provided. Now all ready to go again, De Kock insists that break time is more important than training for him.