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Proteas coach Boucher confident De Kock is equipped to emulate India legend MS Dhoni

Mark Boucher has confidence in the unique leadership style of his captain in the short format Quinton de Kock.
Mark Boucher has confidence in the unique leadership style of his captain in the short format Quinton de Kock.
Image: Howard CLeland/BackpagePix

Proteas coach Mark Boucher is confident that Quinton de Kock is equipped to emulate India legend MS Dhoni by successfully managing his batting and keeping roles while at the same time captaining the ODI side.

De Kock was named man-of-the-series at the conclusion of the drawn ODI series with England to allay concerns that performing the three demanding functions would weigh heavily on him.

He ended the ODI series against England‚ his first as full-time captain since he replaced Faf du Plesis‚ as the leading scorer with 187 runs after three innings and two catches in two innings.

“A lot of people questioned MS Dhoni when he was the captain of India but I think he has a great captaincy record‚” said Boucher‚ who also doubled up as wicket keeper and batsman for the Proteas during his playing days.

“Quinny (De Kock) enjoys being in the game.

"Sometimes he sits in the dressing room during Tests and gets irritated because he wants to do something all the time.

"I think he enjoys it and the off-the-field stuff may get to him a bit but we are going to have to help in that regard.”

Boucher said that De Kock‚ who has a good cricketing brain and makes good decisions on the field‚ will captain the side‚ open the batting and keep wicket in the 2023 Cricket World Cup in India.

“On the field he leads well‚ he makes good captaining decisions and off the field he is pretty chilled and that can be good for the youngsters.

"Him opening the batting‚ keeping wicket and captaining can be sustainable in the lead up to the World Cup in 2023.

“I think Quinny is good on the field and in the changeroom.

"On the field we always knew that he has a very smart cricketing brain‚ he showed that with different field placings which I thought were very good.

“He thought outside the box.

"I don’t think the bowlers helped him out upfront at Wanderers but I am very happy with the way he has captained.

"Quinny is unique and his uniqueness can do wonders in the dressing room because we have a unique set up as well.

"I am happy with the way he has been so far and he will obviously grow to be better as well.”

Boucher added that they tried to give as many opportunities as possible against England.

“Our thinking was to try and give opportunities to see what we can get from the youngsters‚ but unfortunately we didn’t get a game in Durban‚" he said.

"It is difficult to judge players over two games‚ but there is a long time before the World Cup. There were a couple of positives that came from the series.

"I thought Lutho Sipamla bowled very well at the Wanderers and Quinny picked the man of the series as captain.

"There are a lot of positive but there are also things that we need to work on.

"It’s difficult to judge over two games but we will use the next three games against Australia to ask some questions and get answers.”