Watch: South Africa’s run-chase against the Netherlands faced an early setback after Quinton de Kock was run out for a diamond duck following a horrible mix-up off the very first ball in the 2024 T20 World Cup fixture today (June 8) at the Nassau County Stadium in New York.
Chasing a paltry 103, South Africa didn’t have the best of starts on the two-paced New York pitch, slipping to 12-4 early on.
While there was some excellent bowling, the first wicket, off the first ball of the innings, was entirely avoidable. Reeza Hendricks took strike and nudged Vivian Kingma off his pads down to short fine leg. Hendricks called for a run hesitantly, but de Kock, at the non-striker’s end, had already answered the call. He stopped halfway down the track before taking a couple of steps more. In the meantime, Hendricks made a U-turn and ran back towards his crease. Max O’Dowd collected a throw from the fine leg fielder and caught de Kock, who didn't face a single ball, short of his crease by miles.
The dismissal triggered a collapse, as Logan van Beek sent Hendricks packing for three runs off 10 balls before Kingma's twin strikes dismissed captain Aiden Markram for a duck and Heinrich Klaasen for seven off four.
South Africa recorded their lowest powerplay ever in a T20I game, with only 16 runs coming from the first six overs. However, they recovered to chase the target by four wickets in the penultimate over, avoiding a third consecutive World Cup defeat to Netherlands.
Watch de Kock run out for a diamond duck
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