QdK's borrowed bat does the business

A singer opens their mouth to start a song and not a sound emerges. A truck driver reaches for a steering wheel that, bafflingly, isn't there. A politician suffers a sudden loss of dishonesty. Quinton de Kock turns up at a match without a single bat.

Which of those statements is true? The latter, it turns out. WTF?

"I don't know how to answer that question," De Kock told a press conference. "I felt a bit stupid when I noticed. I've got so many bags over the last year, so I'm going through all bits and bobs, and I just went blank.

"Honestly, I don't know. I forgot them. I went a bit white when I realised, and I had to make one or two phone calls in half-an-hour before the bus was leaving."

Leaving the team hotel in Johannesburg, that is, to play the second T20I against West Indies in Centurion. All the while, De Kock's bats were 1,000 kilometres away from him at his home in Knysna - he was rested for the first match of the series in Paarl on Tuesday.

What to do?

"Before I got into the changeroom I went looking between [Dewald Brevis] and Ricks [Ryan Rickelton], and I just pulled one out of Brevi's bag. I said, 'I'm going to use this one today.' Brevi said, 'That's fine. It's a good bat for you because it's left-handed.'"

Who knew Brevis was a jokester?

"Youngsters these days," De Kock said with a shake of his head. "He's still adamant about that. But it did its service tonight."

And how. De Kock scored 115 off 49, reaping almost three-quarters of his runs in fours and sixes. His innings was key to South Africa chasing down a challenging target of 222. They won by seven wickets with 15 balls to spare and clinched the series with a game to spare.

That borrowed bat is staying in De Kock's kitbag, surely?

"It's going back to Brevis. I didn't enjoy it. The weight was out of place for me. It's for youngsters who swing hard. So I won't be having it back any time soon."

Unless, of course, his own bats don't arrive in time for Saturday's match at the Wanderers. Brevi - where's that left-hander of yours ...

De Kock swings not hard but sweetly, meeting the ball on its own terms and sending it on its way with a parabolic flourish. His bat - or someone else's - nestles at rest between his shoulder blades; its violence accomplished with visceral aplomb. So it's surprising that Thursday's performance was only his second century in 100 T20I innings.

He's scored eight in all in the format, but did not get to three figures in this season's SA20 despite finishing as the tournament's leading runscorer. Brevis was in second place 20 runs behind De Kock - not least because he hammered 101 off 56 for Pretoria Capitals against Sunrisers Eastern Cape in the final at Newlands on Sunday.

Eastern Cape's De Kock scored 18 before skying Lizaad Williams to mid-off, but he had the last laugh. SEC won by six wickets with four balls remaining to celebrate their third triumph in the four editions of the tournament.

Sweet striker De Kock and hard hitter Brevis will be twin threats for South Africa in the T20 World Cup in Sri Lanka and India in February and March. But only if they remember to pack their bats. If one of them needs to wait for them to arrive, they might have some fun with this:

Someone old, someone new, something borrowed, to stave off the blues.