Quinton de Kock and the Accountant

Boat after World Cup?

    Nicholas was always going to be an accountant. He was brilliant with numbers from an early age and his destiny seemed unavoidable. He breezed through his articles and was earning big bucks in London by the age of 25. A few years later he was head-hunted to work in the Bahamas.

    He rented a four-bedroomed villa on the beach, had an apartment in Docklands and flew everywhere on lie-flat beds at the front of the plane. When he was in London, he caught the 9:00pm BA flight to Cape Town on Friday night, straight from the office, breakfasted at a five-star hotel, played 18 holes on Saturday afternoon and had another round on Sunday, mid-morning.

    Then he’d have a gin-and-tonic in the lounge and fly back to London on Sunday evening. On Monday morning a driver took him back to the office where he’d shower and change, ready for the new week. At his desk by 9:00am. What a life.

    He hated it. At least, he hated almost everything about what he did in order to enjoy the benefits of his success. Nicholas hated accountancy. The way he dressed, and spoke, to conform. The way he was expected to demure and ‘understate’ when things on his desk were evidently worthy of stronger comment. But he did what he did because he was brilliant at it. The numbers side of it, if not the demuring, which came through gritted teeth.

    A young Quinton de Kock was as poor with numbers as Nicholas was good, but he was really good at cricket. Nicholas didn’t play cricket. De Kock was so good he was selected to represent Gauteng as a 15-year-old, made his List ‘A’ debut at 16, his first-class debut at 17 and his national debut a few days after his 20^th birthday. A year before his 21^st birthday, he’d already spent five years with cricket as the dominant aspect of his life. School was just about tolerated.

    But de Kock discovered that his struggles at school with being told what to do were nothing compared to what cricket administration had to offer. As the years passed by, the simple joy of bat-on-ball and catching edges was tempered by bureaucracy. Some of it entirely understandable and reasonable, but that wasn’t the way Quinny saw it.

    Time with his dogs and fishing rod were being unreasonably restricted, in his opinion, and there was far too much time being wasted on things of which he had no interest. When he stood up, he was knocked back down. What was a rebellious streak was turning into an angry one.

    The most obvious example was when he refused to play in a T20 World Cup match in 2021 after the team were instructed by CSA Board chairman, Lawson Naidoo. De Kock’s decision had little to do with his views on the Black Lives Matter movement but everything to do with being given instructions on how to behave by a man behind a desk 5000km away.   

    By his late 20s the ‘love-hate’ relationship was far from 50-50. Only the best moments on the field were keeping him going. First-class cricket was ditched, as was Test cricket before his 30^th birthday. It was clear that de Kock was playing for money. But doing so with commitment, not going through the motions.

    Graeme Smith, CSA’s Director of Cricket, saw his diminishing love for the game and hoped that his appointment as captain might rekindle it. It was a comically huge gamble, at the time as well as in retrospect. At least it helped clarify de Kock’s future. Make as much money as possible, in as short a period of time as possible, and then walk away into a new, different future. “I won’t lie, that’s the plan,” he said in a television interview two weeks ago.

    It is interesting how differently sports professionals are judged from those with ‘normal’ careers. When Nicholas ‘semi-retired’ a couple of years ago and took up the lucrative consultancy contracts which appealed to him, often short-and-sharp engagements for which his acute analysis was well rewarded, he was serenaded by his friends. He has a small yacht now. He is financially secure thanks to a profession he rarely enjoyed.

    After 10 years in the IPL De Kock is extremely well set for the rest of his life. He left Johannesburg and moved to the seaside, holiday town of Knysna three years ago where he can catch fresh water or ocean fish and has half a dozen glorious golf courses at his disposal.

    He has signed up to play in the Big Bash in Australia in December which means he will not be available for the T20I series against India. It is an unapologetic way of saying he may be available to the Proteas for the 20-over World Cup in June, but don’t expect him to play any more international cricket than he has to.  

    De Kock says he will “…give the World Cup my best shot. I would like to tick off an ICC event.” Much like Nicholas would like to ‘tick off’ a particularly tricky forensic audit, one which he may have failed at before.

    We expect sportspeople representing their countries, and therefore us, to be passionate and committed to extreme lengths, far beyond those expected of soldiers, police officers and firefighters. Why? Theirs is a job. The majority of sports professionals do, indeed, train and play with the burning passion of national pride, but they are diminishing. 

    “I don’t see myself being involved in the game in any way when I stop playing. I want a life after cricket,” De Kock said. Fair enough. It won’t, and shouldn’t, stop us enjoying and appreciating the runs he scores in India over the next six weeks. Perhaps he, too, will buy a boat afterwards.