Former Proteas captain, now Director of Cricket, Graeme Smith, has pointed out that Quinton de Kock’s recent captaincy appointment is permanent and that he will need support to grow and develop as leader.

Cricket South Africa announced on Tuesday that Quinton de Kock is Faf du Plessis’ successor in the 50-over format starting with next month’s series against the World Champions England.

“It’s been a plan of ours to put a succession plan in place for 2023. Having sat with Faf, We see him playing a role as a player but from a leadership perspective we felt it was an opportunity to move forward in the one day arena and Faf is quite honest that he doesn’t see himself around in 2023.”

We all know Quinny as the shy character, who because of the experienced players he has played with over the years, has had the freedom to be himself and be young in his approach to batting in terms of being a free-flowing, all-or-nothing type of batsman.

Eight years later, he’s given the responsibility of captaining the South African ODI side against the World Champions, England.

“Leadership has been an issue of late in South African cricket and we effectively made the decision to give Quinny an opportunity, we feel tactically he’s good. There’s areas of his leadership that he knows and we all know needs to grow and develop but I think he’s the right guy at this stage to take that one-day side forward.”

Having captained a young T20I side a couple of months ago, De Kock will have an idea of what awaits him as a skipper but will still have a lot to learn as a leader.

“Anyone who takes over a job of that magnitude is going to have challenges. I think of myself at 22, I had a lot of elements that were good and a lot of elements that I needed to develop and grow,” Smith continued.

“Giving him the tools, giving him the support, understanding from him where he thinks he needs help. I think he’s got a strong leadership team around him in Enoch, Mark and the various other guys who’ll support him. He’s got a young side and as a captain on the field he’s going to have to carry a lot of the can, so we need to give him support.

“I think that there’s a lot of stuff he wouldn’t have dealt with by not being captain.  There’s a range of things that comes with captaining your country, extra press conferences,  selections meeting, having to be aware and maybe answering your phone more than you used to. It’s just a whole lot of stuff, and I think for us here to expect him to be a finished article today, I think we’d all be naive.”

The first of the three ODI matches is scheduled for the 4^th of February 2020 at Newlands Stadium.