De Kock's relationship with ODIs is complicated, but it's clear he cares

If you want to know whether Quinton de Kock cares about ODI cricket, watch his reaction after he scored his 50-over World Cup ton against Sri Lanka. There's the power of the pull shot and then the passion of the wide-legged stance, the fist pump, the raised bat and the roar, followed by the pathos of the glint in the eye. Was it sweat or a tear? We may never know but we know enough: that hundred meant something.

"It was big," de Kock said, typically poker-faced in Lucknow, ahead of South Africa's next match against Australia. "Not just because it was a World Cup, but because I've been wanting a hundred for a while. I've got a couple of starts and then obviously I was not capitalising so just to get one again was pretty nice."

Before South Africa's tournament opener, de Kock's last ODI hundred came 20 months and 18 innings ago. Since then, he has scored three fifties, reached double figures 13 times, notched up a first T20I century, signed up for leagues including the MLC and the Big Bash and announced his retirement from the 50-over game. This World Cup is his last dance in the format in which he is, by a distance, the leading run-scorer of this generation of South Africans. He has 6276 ODI runs; the next most in the squad is David Miller, more than 2,000 runs behind. Overall, de Kock is seventh on South Africa's all-time list and only Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers and Herschelle Gibbs have more ODI hundreds than him. Whatever else happens in this World Cup, de Kock will go down as one of South Africa's most celebrated white-ball cricketers.

Potentially, his farewell in the format also puts a(nother) question mark at the end of the sentence about the future of this format, although the man himself believes there is life in it.

"I'm not going to speak on behalf of everyone. For myself, I find it quite tiring, but I'm sure there's still a lot of guys, a lot of youngsters coming through from school, who would love to play this format," he said. "I highly recommend that they find a way to keep it going, because there are a lot of guys with big ambitions who want this format to carry on. I think they need to find a place and a time for it to happen."

"They" are the administrators, with whom de Kock has not always had the best of relationships but who may still be interested in his thoughts over the longevity of ODI cricket and the value of it. Ultimately, it was ODI cricket that made de Kock, after his three centuries against India in 2013, long before he was a T20 star. The longer limited-overs version allowed him time to build both his innings and his confidence and though cricket and its skills development has changed in the decade since de Kock debuted, he is an example of the kind of player ODIs can produce. He is also an example - maybe one of the last ones - of what ODI cricket can mean to players.

For de Kock and this generation, a 50-over World Cup trophy is still the ultimate prize, even as the lure of T20s grows stronger. De Kock is one of those who have hung around, hoping for success in ODIs, when he could have walked away. He cares about it, even though his usually deadpan expressions and monotone and sometimes monosyllabic answers to questions, make it easy and lazy to assume he doesn't.

During the recent series against Australia, de Kock spoke to the host broadcaster about his decision to focus solely on the shortest format and said that his loyalty to the national cause was what kept him on the ODI stage for the last five years. By his calculations, he could have walked away in 2018, cashed in on the T20 circuit and had his feet up by now.

Instead, he is putting the fishing on hold to play his third 50-over World Cup and has started by showing he is willing to give it his all. His hundred against Sri Lanka laid the foundation for South Africa to break the World Cup batting record and, along with Rassie van der Dussen, provided the stability for Aiden Markram to score the fastest tournament hundred. And de Kock wasn't the only one who let his emotions out that day.

All three South Africans who scored centuries against Sri Lanka were more animated than usual. That may be because the sense of belief in their own abilities is building but de Kock is still cautious.

"We're doing really well as a batting unit and we've worked really hard on our game over the last couple of years but it's only one game into the World Cup," he said. "So it's hard to say how we are really going even though we managed really well in our last couple of games. The batting form hasn't been over the course of years, it's only been over a month or a couple of months. In order for us to be the best, we still need to be a bit more consistent, especially in tight games, like World Cups. That will determine how good we actually are."

South Africa's only measure for how good they actually are, so far, is that they have not won a World Cup. For a squad that has always oozed talent that is something they want to change, especially as their most talented players, like de Kock, may not play in this format for much longer. Does that add extra motivation to this campaign? De Kock was not convinced.

"I'm pretty much the same whether I've announced that I've retired or not retired," he said. "I don't really know how it happened. It was just a matter of working on one or two things and going out there and getting it done."

As simple as that.