IPL 2020: ‘Don’t do that again,’ Mahela Jayawardene warns Quinton de Kock despite match-winning knock

IPL 2020: De Kock, who hit an unbeaten 78 off just 44 balls with nine fours and three sixes, stayed till the very end, seeing MI through, but there was one thing he got wrong.

Quinton de Kock did everything right Friday night, leading Mumbai Indians’ successful chase of 149 against Kolkata Knight Riders. De Kock, who hit an unbeaten 78 off just 44 balls with nine fours and three sixes, stayed till the very end, seeing MI through which propelled them to the top of the points-table. De Kock’s effort even bagged him the Player of the Match Award.

However, there was one thing de Kock did not do right, and that is wear the right trousers while batting. As a matter of fact, de Kock batted the entire innings in MI’s practice points, which Jayawardene informed, left the franchises’ top brasses ‘nuts’. De Kock had to keep pulling his jersey down to hide the orange stripes on his trousers.

“Apart from Quinny going and batting with his practice pants, everything else was pretty decent,” he told de Kock in a video that was uploaded by MI on their Twitter. “Ok, so don’t do that again because the marketing guys are going nuts, people went nuts as well. If it works, it works but we’ll sort something else.”

After scoring just 48 runs in the first four matches, the wicketkeeper batsman has found his touch tallying 221 in the next four. During the post-match ceremony, de Kock revealed the fact that he was not able to finish the last game spurred him to stay till the end and guide MI over the line.

“I was disappointed at not finishing it off last game, Mahela had a word to us - he keeps us in check, in focus, it’s nice to have such people around. I have played enough to not think too much about the keeping - everyone does drop catches and I’m not any different. I’m working on some aspects of the keeping, but I think I can keep improving on that aspect of the game,” he said.

“To be honest, I’m not very sure - it’s the best shot I have in my armoury (talking about his leg-side game), I like to play it and it’s nice when it comes off. It’s all about keeping my balance, I don’t work too much on the cross-bat shots, it’s important to stay in line while playing those.”