The riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma who is Quinton de Kock

What made Quinton de Kock want to return to international cricket? The question was put to him during a press conference on Thursday (October 30). He chose not to answer it meaningfully.

"Well, yeah, kind of just what I've just said - I missed representing the country and the Proteas team," he replied. "So, from the question before, same answer."

The question before had been about what he had missed about the dressing room environment and what he had enjoyed since coming back.

"The thing I missed the most is the camaraderie. And the whole thing of representing the Proteas.

"I've played so much for the Proteas over the years that I kind of forgot about that niche. As a kid who's grown up to be a Proteas cricketer, after having a break from the team, that childhood dream kind of came back.

"What I've really enjoyed since I've come back is all the new faces. There's maybe a handful of guys still here from when I left. Now I'm playing with a whole bunch of youngsters and a new coaching staff, so it's quite refreshing.

"I'm making some new friends, and there's a new style within the team. It's been cool being back and just trying to find my feet."

Doubtless many players, after retiring, pine for their teammates - the people who were their de facto family for weeks and months on end. Just as certain is that the end of an international career, with all its bells, whistles, bright lights and big cities, can only be experienced as a loss. You might not miss all the training and endless hours spent in aircraft, but even us civilians can understand the thrill of pulling a national team shirt over our head and walking out to play in front of excited multitudes.

Thing is, cricketers who have decided to give all of that up tend to remain retired. They don't get on the phone to the coach or the captain and discuss coming back - like De Kock did. Missing your teammates and the limelight after you've walked away is one thing. Missing it badly enough to try to get back what you've chosen to relinquish is distinctly another.

What made De Kock want to return to international cricket? We don't know. Perhaps we never will. Maybe he doesn't, either. And that's OK. If De Kock's motivation was fuelled by his feelings - rather than by rationalising his options and guesstimating how many games he might still have in his 32-year-old body - that's a good enough reason. Maybe he wanted to return simply because he wanted to return. With De Kock, who can say?

"Quinny was an enigma and he's still an enigma," Shukri Conrad said last month when De Kock was named in the squads for seven white-ball games in Namibia and Pakistan from October 11 to November 8. Conrad might have extended his metaphor to what Winston Churchill, in a speech in October 1939, said about Russia signing a non-aggression pact with sworn enemy Germany: "It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma."

De Kock is cricket's equivalent package of puzzles. That much was plain from what he said when he was asked how much he saw of Laura Wolvaardt and Marizanne Kapp bossing South Africa into their first ever senior World Cup final, men's or women's, with a 125-run thrashing of England in their semifinal in Guwahati on Wednesday.

"The only time I did watch was when I was on the physio's bed. I woke up and there was a bit of chat in the team. That's pretty much all I know. So congratulations to them. But, in general, I just don't watch cricket."

Many players don't watch the game. Few would say so in an instance like this. Instead they would come up with a deflecting banality that does the PR job expected of them in the moment.

De Kock doesn't deflect. He stands and delivers. Like he has done in many of his 303 internationals across the formats, in which he has scored 12,678 runs with 28 centuries. Only nine players have had more games for South Africa. Just six have scored more runs and more hundreds.

Of the players who have earned more caps only David Miller hasn't retired. And stayed retired. Three more games and De Kock will surpass Miller. Jacques Kallis' record of 513 matches is probably out of De Kock's reach, but this isn't about numbers. It never is with De Kock.

"When I spoke to Shukri I said I'd like to play for the Proteas for as long as I can, however long that's going to be. I'd like to play in a couple of World Cups.

"I feel fitter than ever. So I'm going to push it for as long as I can, whatever that timeline is. I haven't set a deadline.

"The door isn't completely open for me. I still need to score runs. So let's first get that job done and see where we can go from there."

A year, three months and 11 days - or 468 days - passed between De Kock playing in the T20 World Cup final in June 2024 and his next game for South Africa, a T20I against Namibia not quite three weeks ago. Only De Kock and Hendricks played in both games, albeit that the squad for the latter was weakened by selections for the Test series that started in Lahore the next day.

De Kock lasted four balls in Windhoek and 13 in another T20I, against Pakistan in Rawalpindi on Wednesday. But he still has chances to "get that job done", starting with the second T20I in Lahore on Friday.

De Kock made his debut in a T20I against New Zealand at Kingsmead in December 2012, four days after his 20th birthday. When he took the field in Windhoek he was 68 days away from turning 33. In the current T20I squad only Reeza Hendricks, who is 36, is older than De Kock.

Eight of the 15 squad members are not yet 30, and three of them are under 25. One, Lhuan-dre Pretorius, will be a teenager until March 27 next year.

De Kock knows what it's like to be mentored. It's time for him to try his hand at mentoring.

"When I started playing for the Proteas one of the big guys I stuck close to was Dale Steyn. He taught me lessons that really helped my career. To this day, we're very tight friends.

"I've played with Brevi [Dewald Brevis] at the Titans, and I've just met Lou [Pretorius] and some of the other new guys. I'm still trying to befriend everyone here.

"A couple of the youngsters have been asking me how to improve their game. I'm happy to be here and to help where I can, like what Dale did for me. If I make an impact on their careers, great.

"It's very different coming back as one of the older guys. I've been used to being one of the young guys. Reeza and I were talking about it. It felt like just the other day we were playing under-19 cricket. Now we're the oldest guys in the squad. That's quite a shock. But, yeah, that's what it is."

He's older, certainly. And wiser. Maybe. Definitely, he's still Quinton de Kock.