South Africa batter Quinton de Kock addresses growing concerns over future of ODI format

Earlier this month, the new president of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) Mark Nicholas asked for the ODI format to be played exclusively in the World Cup in a bid to protect the format that is losing its importance and the rise of the T20I format over the period of time.

Ahead of their clash against Australia on Thursday at the Ekana Sports City, the left-handed batter who has already announced his retirement from the 50-over format was questioned about the future of one-day cricket.

Quinton believes that there will be youngsters who would like to play the format and said in the pre-match press conference, "I'm sure a lot of guys love the format. I'm not going to speak on behalf of everyone. For myself, it's been doing it for a couple of years now, so I find it quite tiring. It's been a long time for myself, but I'm sure there's still a lot of guys, a lot of youngsters coming through the ranks, guys still at school growing up, they still would love to play this format and I highly recommend that they find a way to keep it going because there's a lot of guys with big ambitions who want this format to carry on going which I think they need to find a place and a time for it to happen."

South Africa will be backing themselves to walk away with the victory as they have 15 victories out of the last 20 ODI matches that they have played. Last month, they turned around a 2-0 deficit to clinch the five-match ODI series by 3-2.

"To be honest, I'm not too sure. Not too sure. I think we've just played really good cricket. I've been part of all of those series and to be honest I think just a lot of guys have just stepped up at the right time and we've just been on the right side of it. Honestly not too sure because Australia are a really good cricketing team. They're going to make it really difficult for anybody who plays against them. So yeah, I can't put my thumb on it," de Kock added.

Australia squad: Pat Cummins (c), Steve Smith, Alex Carey, Josh Inglis, Sean Abbott, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Marnus Labuschagne, Mitch Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, David Warner, Adam Zampa, Mitchell Starc.

South Africa squad: Temba Bavuma (c), Gerald Coetzee, Quinton de Kock, Reeza Hendricks, Marco Jansen, Heinrich Klaasen, Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram, David Miller, Lungi Ngidi, Andile Phehlukwayo, Kagiso Rabada, Tabraiz Shamsi, Rassie van der Dussen, Lizaad Williams. (ANI)