Quinton de Kock makes himself unavailable for selection against West Indies, speculations rise

South Africa captain Temba Bavuma at the toss said de Kock has made himself unavailable due to personal reasons. Attacking opener Reeza Handricks replaced the left-handed de Kock in South Africa's XI.

In what turned out to be a major surprise, wicketkeeper-batter Quinton de Kock made himself unavailable for selection in South Africa's important T20 World Cup 2021 Group 1 Super 12 stage match against West Indies in Dubai on Tuesday.

South Africa's Quinton de Kock (REUTERS)

South Africa captain Temba Bavuma at the toss said de Kock has made himself unavailable due to personal reasons. Attacking opener Reeza Handricks replaced the left-handed de Kock in South Africa's XI.

“Quinny is out and Reeza is in. He (de Kock) has made himself unavailable for personal reasons,” Bavuma said who won the toss and opted to bowl first.

That was the only change South Africa made to their side that lost a close contest to Australia a couple of days ago.

“I think just having a look at the wicket, it has been challenging for us to know what a good score is, so we want to have a look. We take out a lot (from the series win against West Indies), all the positives and all the negatives. We know what a power-packed side they are, looking at our performances we know where we can cool them down. (Area of focus) Probably the batting. I think that would be the one I would highlight and like to show a better batting display,” Bavuma said.

Moments before the announcement of de Kock's absence, Cricket South Africa issues a statement which requires all Proteas players to ‘take the knee’ before the start of their remaining T20 matches, which led to speculations as to whether the two are related.

Reacting to de Kock's sudden decision to give this match a miss, former Australia all-rounder Shane Watson said there must be some ‘internal issues’. “Huge shock. There must be something going on internally,” Watson said on Star Sports.

Former West Indies captain Brian Lara said de Kock's absence will give advantage to West Indies. “It's gonna big advantage West Indies now that de Kock is not playing,” Lara said.

West Indies, too made one change to their side which was bowled out for 55 against England. Seamer Obed McCoy was replaced by Hayden Walsh.

“I always say toss is 50-50. It is an opportunity for us to bat first, put things right and we look forward to the challenge. Like I said we play a lot of cricket and something that we all have experienced at some point in time, we all deal with challenges in different ways, it is matter of us understanding on what we did wrong and how to fix it. The guys have been upbeat despite what happened a couple of days ago,” said Pollard.

West Indies (Playing XI): Lendl Simmons, Evin Lewis, Chris Gayle, Shimron Hetmyer, Nicholas Pooran(w), Kieron Pollard(c), Andre Russell, Dwayne Bravo, Akeal Hosein, Hayden Walsh, Ravi Rampaul

South Africa (Playing XI): Temba Bavuma(c), Reeza Hendricks, Rassie van der Dussen, Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen(w), David Miller, Dwaine Pretorius, Keshav Maharaj, Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortje, Tabraiz Shamsi