You don't expect anyone of his calibre to retire at that age: Boucher on de Kock's retirement

Johannesburg, Jan 2: For South Africa head coach Mark Boucher, batter Quinton de Kock's sudden Test retirement is a "shock" since "you do not expect anyone of his calibre to retire at that age".

De Kock, only 29, announced his retirement from Test cricket at the end of the opening match against India, which the hosts lost by 113 runs at SuperSport Park in Centurion on Thursday (December 30).

"You do not expect anyone of his calibre to retire at that age," Boucher said. "It came as a shock. But we fully respect his reasons," local media quoted him as saying.

De Kock scored 3300 runs from 54 Tests at an average of 38.82 with six hundreds after making his debut in 2014. Boucher said the Proteas have no luxury to dwell on de Kock's decision but must instead focus on the second Test against India which gets underway at the Wanderers here on Monday (January 3).

"He (de Kock) had a fantastic Test career. It's sad, but we'll have to keep going," Boucher said. "We're in the middle of a series and we cannot wonder about it for too long. We need to focus on the guys who come in his place and hopefully, they can do something similar to what Quinny offered us."

While the Proteas' think-tank knew that de Kock wouldn't be available for the second and third Test due to the birth of his first child, they didn't expect the first Test loss against India to be his final game in whites for South Africa.

Earlier in the day, SA Test captain Dean Elgar expressed his shock over de Kock's decision but insisted his team has a bigger task at hand i.e. levelling the ongoing series against India with the second Test, starting Monday (January 3).

"I was pretty shocked. But sitting down with Quinney (Quinton de Kock), he explained his reasons and I respect and fully understand his decision," Elgar said at a virtual press conference on the eve of the second Test. "I don't think there will be any," Elgar responded when asked if there will be any hangover on the players about his retirement.

"The responsibility for us is to carry and conduct ourselves as international players. We still have to be professional around this. We still have a Test series to level, so I don't think there will be any hangover or shock over Quinney's retirement.

"Players respect the environment. We realise that we had a few setbacks in recent times and we need to obviously have to be clever around it and get over it. I don't see this affecting the players of still being shocked about his retirement."

Asked if it will set a dangerous precedent for Test cricket with talented players giving up the red-ball game for big bucks through white-ball tournaments, Elgar said: "I don't think his decision is going to jeopardise Test cricket going forward.

"His reasons are his reasons and his choice to retire, we as a group fully respect it and we as a group have to get over it and move on now. "The game moves on when guys retire. I have been fortunate enough to experience some of the big guys retire, one thing I realised, the game doesn't stop for you, we have to get over it quickly and respect the position Quinney is in."