De Kock has scored 17 ODI centuries but has rarely, if ever, batted as well as he did on Sunday ©AFP
"There is so much to play for," Nick Knight said on television moments before England took the field, and Janneman Malan and Quinton de Kock walked out to open the batting, at a cloudy Headingley on Sunday. Knight was wrong. There was nothing to play for: no World Cup Super League points, no other ODIs for South Africa until October and for England until November, and thus no real reason to bother building for a future filled with T20Is and Tests.
But that doesn't matter to players who have spent most of their lives fuelled by competitiveness. Pitch the stumps, toss a coin and watch them flick the switch, whether they're in a backyard, a gully or on the game's most storied grounds. And especially when the match will, weather permitting, decide a series.
Certainly, if anyone told De Kock Sunday's proceedings were irrelevant, he wasn't listening. England's bowlers and fielders looked flat - surely a consequence of playing their 10th match in a day more than three weeks - and the pitch was a belter, but De Kock still needed to bring his A game to make the most of those advantages. He did exactly that with stroke selection, timing and placement fixed firmly on the ridiculous side of sublime.
De Kock missed out on contributing significantly to South Africa's record high total in ODIs in England -
