“I guess me walking prematurely, before the umpire had made a decision, probably was not the cleverest of things.” – Temba Bavuma
Telford Vice | Johannesburg
FOR three hours, nine minutes, 59.9 seconds and 124 deliveries at Centurion on Sunday and Monday, Temba Bavuma was the epitome of the modern Test batter.
He hustled and bustled. He played strokes as crisp as a new cotton shirt. He ran like the wind that wasn’t there to lighten the heavy heat of a Highveld midsummer’s day. He was as sure of foot as he was of mind. He was deft and decisive, and he was 71 not out in a stand of 179 with Faf du Plessis.
Then came the 0.1 seconds it took Bavuma to decide what to do about the 125th ball he faced. Dasun Shanaka’s shortish, widish delivery was an invitation to have a go. Bavuma obliged, cutting hard. Niroshan Dickwella caught the ball and gleefully appealled. Marais Erasmus was unmoved. Bavuma thrust his bat under his arm in a movement as sharply defined as everything else he had done, jagged his heels square of the crease, tilted his head backward, and strode off the ground steaming with disappointment.
He had crossed the boundary by the time the broadcaster’s gizmos revealed he had not hit the ball; that the edge of his bat had come nowhere near it, in cricket-speak. Which means he missed it not by much, but that he clearly missed it. So why walk? Or why not wait to find out what the umpire thought?
“It was nice to get runs under the belt; to get the confidence flowing,” Bavuma said in a video file released by CSA on Friday. “I would have wanted to score a lot more runs. The opportunity was there. I guess me walking prematurely, before the umpire had made a decision, probably was not the cleverest of things. But it happened in the spur of the moment.”
More happily for South Africa, Bavuma’s strange dismissal was but a blip on their march to victory by an innings and 45 runs inside four days — their only success in the four Tests they played in 2020. And that after Sri Lanka had scored 396 in their first innings, their highest total in South Africa. The home side’s response, helped by injuries to much of the Lankans’ frontline attack, was 621.
“We were able to bring the game back through strong performances, led by the batters,” Bavuma said. “There hasn’t been a lot of consistency or confidence in our batting. So the pressure was on the batters, especially considering they are the senior guys in the team, to step up and lead the way.”
South Africa’s attack had just a dozen caps worth of experience going into the match, and it took them time to settle in. “In the first innings, it wasn’t our best bowling effort,” Bavuma said. “The second innings [when Sri Lanka were dismissed for 180] was totally different … in terms of the discipline, intensity and ruthlessness that we showed.”
The second Test starts on Sunday at the Wanderers, where conditions are likely to be similar to those at Centurion. What would Bavuma change about South Africa’s approach? “Not a lot, to be honest. The challenge will be, if you do get in, to make sure you go and get the big score to be able to put the team in a good position.”
It seems the South Africans won’t want for opportunities to do so. Word from the Sri Lanka camp on Friday was that Suranga Lakmal will not be over the hamstring injury that kept him out of the first Test and will join Dhananjaya de Silva, Dinesh Chandimal, Kasun Rajitha, Lahiru Kumara and Oshada Fernando on the sidelines. Wanindu Hasaranga, who made a promising debut at Centurion, is to undergo a fitness test on Saturday.
South Africa have also had their mishaps, though they have been nowhere near as damaging to the cause. Glenton Stuurman has been released from the squad because of a quadriceps strain, a release on Friday said. That follows Migael Pretorius being let go on Wednesday after injuring a shoulder. It’s plausible that the two uncapped players hurt themselves by trying too hard to be noticed during training sessions. But their franchises, the Warriors and the Knights, would be justified if they were unhappy that players they sent to the highest level fit and healthy are coming home injured.
Not that Bavuma will be thinking of those who are no longer around as he looks to add a second century to the 14 half-centuries he has scored in his 68 Test innings. The closest he has come so far was at the Wanderers — his home ground — in March 2018, when Australia’s dismissal of South Africa left him marooned on 95 not out. As positive as the recollection of his performance in that innings will be, that wasn’t enough for Bavuma: “I’d like to create more memories; there is a feeling of unfinished business.”
First published by Cricbuzz.
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