"There is a lot 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 turned into wrong. There became nothing to play for: no World Cup Super League factors, no other ODIs for South Africa till October and for England till November, and accordingly no real cause to bother building for a destiny full of T20Is and Tests. But that does not remember to players who have spent most of their lives fuelled with the aid of competitiveness. Pitch the stumps, toss a coin and watch them flick the switch, whether they're in a outside, a gully or on the sport's maximum storied grounds. And particularly whilst the match will, climate allowing, determine a chain. Certainly, if every person advised De Kock Sunday's court cases have been irrelevant, he wasn't listening. England's bowlers and fielders regarded flat - absolutely a effect of playing their tenth fit in an afternoon extra than three weeks - and the pitch changed into a belter, but De Kock still had to bring his A sport to make the maximum of those advantages. He did exactly that with stroke selection, timing and location fixed firmly at the ridiculous facet of elegant. De Kock missed out on contributing substantially to South Africa's file high total in ODIs in England - 333/five - in Chester-le-Street on Tuesday, while Sam Curran bowled him for 19. On Friday, inside the throes of the visitors spiralling to their joint lowest general in England - 83 - and being bowled out within the fewest range of deliveries through any fighters everywhere - 124 - De Kock made five before blipping a main side to brief cover off David Willey. He became first out on Tuesday and, on Friday, the 1/3 of four South Africans dismissed with the entire refusing to budge from six. Other players might have taken shield on Sunday trying to blot out mind of in which their next huge innings become coming from, even though that they had, as De Kock had, come to England having passed 50 in half of of their preceding 14 innings in the format and scored centuries in 3 of them. The deliveries that knocked him over in the first games - a leg-cutter on Tuesday, an away-swinger on Friday - had zigged off the seam. Would he be overly wary of movement, and now not play as freely as he would possibly have, for that reason? Malan took first strike, so De Kock could have seen Reece Topley's beginning transport veer through the air toward the right-hander, who dabbed it to midwicket for a single. The 2d ball did a good deal the same, curving faraway from the left-passed De Kock, who drove it into the covers for 2. He performed the shot with the benefit and comfort of someone who by no means doubted that he could. It took 19 deliveries for De Kock to check in the primary boundary of the match, selecting an inswinger from Willey off his pads and sending it thru midwicket with reason that seemed preordained. Malan hit the subsequent fours in the area of three balls within the subsequent over, off-riding Topley elegantly and then smacking him over the covers along with his bat excessive and horizontal. Two deliveries later, Malan was out: his riding bat advanced too far ahead of his frame, and the ball looped limply to factor. Rassie van der Dussen, 100 hero in Tuesday's hovering heat, gave the impression of he had set a direction for some other pile of runs while he helped De Kock reach 50 off 39 balls - which he did with fours via deep 0.33 and cover off Adil Rashid's first deliveries of the sport. But, with the stand well worth 75 off 69, Van der Dussen swept Rashid straight into deep square leg's hands and changed into long gone for 26. The closest England had come to getting rid of De Kock turned into in the ninth over, whilst Willey's throw from midwicket missed with the diving South African properly quick of his ground. Would he be undone via the rain that halted the motion within the twenty first over, while he became sixty nine? No. Or, as De Kock yelled after the resumption nearly hours later whilst he changed into ninety one and Aiden Markram wanted a unmarried from a bunt to midwicket off Moeen Ali: "Nee! Nee! Nee! Nee! Nee! Nee!" That's no, six times, in Afrikaans, if you hadn't translated it yourself. Three balls later, with De Kock eight quick of his century having faced seventy six balls, the rain back to chase the gamers from the sphere. Ninety mins after that, the healthy was abandoned. Some will bear in mind De Kock's marooning a travesty. How could the gods be so heartless as to not provide him the hundred he so deserved? Others might be thankful that they have been capable to observe one of the greatest innings any people will see; a element of splendor and sophistication with out anything so discordant as bravado or brute force. De Kock has scored 17 ODI centuries but has hardly ever, if ever, batted as well as he did on Sunday. At a press convention he became asked whether his retirement from Test cricket in December, an announcement that become met with disbelief wherever cricket is played, allowed him to end up a higher participant? He mulled over the question for a second, then stated: "I do not assume so. I haven't actually idea about it, to be honest. I think I've usually been a first rate white-ball participant besides, so I don't know if it's miles that. I haven't truly seemed into that."