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The South African captain smashed 13 fours and two sixes to carry his side to a comfortable victory over their neighbouring country.
Zimbabwe won the toss and chose to bat first on a scorcher of a day at Northerns Goodwood CC where bowlers Rabian Engelbrecht and Travis Muller had fantastic matches, returning with impressive analyses of 3/33 and 3/37 respectively.
Zimbabwe’s Ryan Burl scored the most runs with 59 off 97 balls after no one before him could manage more than 28 runs.
Zimbabwe finished with 197/8 at the end of their allotted 50 overs with Shaylen Pillay and Lesiba Ngoepe chipping in with a wicket each.
“The boys bowled really well at the front in the impossible heat, they made it easy to work things around and made my job easier as a captain,” De Kock said.
This is De Kock's first ODI century, but he did score a T20 century at the same ground last year.
“I think this is a good ground for me,” he said. “But I’m not really focussing on centuries, I’m just thinking about getting enough runs to get my team to a win,” he concluded.
South Africa started off well with De Kock sharing a 53-run partnership with Chad Bowes before Kyle Bowie scattered his stumps for 12 in the eighth over. After that, South Africa gave Zimbabwe a lesson in focus as De Kock led the run chase with Cloete backing him up nicely with a patient knock, scoring 59 runs from 77 balls.
There is no rest for Zimbabwe as they take on Pakistan, the third team in the triangular, at Somerset College tomorrow. South Africa will face Pakistan on Friday the 13th.
