“I feel like a different Temba showed up in the last three games.” – Temba Bavuma
Telford Vice / Cape Town
SOUTH Africa’s men’s team were deep in the doldrums as recently as last Friday. Their bruising from a Test series defeat in Australia was painfully fresh, and the less said the better about the shambolic end of their T20 World Cup campaign. As if to rub it in, the SA20 had arrived in a dazzle of hype and happiness to show South Africans how worthwhile cricket could be when quality players perform properly.
England, who were in town to play three World Cup Super League games, loomed ominously. They were without, for various reasons, Ben Stokes, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow and Mark Wood, while Jofra Archer would use the series to come back from a lengthy lay-off. But considering South Africa had lost five of their 11 completed ODIs last year, which included being their first series loss at home in any format by Bangladesh, the alarm bells rang loud. Especially with direct qualification for this year’s ODI World Cup not yet secured. A week on, and the scenario couldn’t be more different.
Perhaps because Bloemfontein and Kimberley are not on the regular international circuit — South Africa last played there in March 2020 and September 2018 — crowds were good. Or did that happen because both grounds are hundreds of kilometres away from the nearest SA20 venue? Turning out to watch South Africa was the closest the fans could get to the kind of excitement that was passing them by.
They were rewarded with five centuries, including two of the five highest individual innings scored in Kimberley, and three four-wicket hauls, among them Archer’s 6/40 on Wednesday — the best bowling performance in a Kimberley ODI. They saw a record chase in Bloemfontein and the biggest total yet made in Kimberley. Better yet, they witnessed some of the best ODI cricket South Africa have played in years to win the first two matches and keep their competitive edge in the dead rubber. Losing a point in the standings for a slow over rate in Kimberley has complicated the qualification equation, but not impossibly.
The first series under the new coaching regime of Shukri Conrad and Rob Walter was a resounding success. So much so that Temba Bavuma, whose match-winning 109 on Sunday clinched the rubber, came out swinging on Wednesday when a question at a press conference veered towards flat pitches and flatter bowling: “Maybe it speaks to the quality of the batting that was on display. Maybe that could be appreciated more than just having a go at the bowlers.”
Of the 17 bowlers used in the rubber, only Kagiso Rabada, Olly Stone and Sam Curran conceded less than a run-a-ball. But Bavuma’s point stands, not least from the perspective of a South Africa team who have tended to be long on skill and short on confidence. “It’s really becoming a lot clearer when we speak about guys going out and expressing themselves and looking to take on the game,” Bavuma said. “We lost today but, in terms of the [required] runrate, we were on par. That’s a big gain for us as a team. The more we chase scores like [the 347/5 the home side made to win on Sunday], the more we’ll have that belief and start solidifying how we want to play.”
A measure of the firming up of these ideas could be gleaned at the toss before the last two matches. Not only was Sisanda Magala — whose 3/46 had turned the first game in South Africa’s favour — left out for the second, so was Rabada. Rabada also sat out the third match, along with Anrich Nortjé.
Time was when South Africa wouldn’t dare rest key players with a series or a clean sweep on the line, especially not with important points at stake. But progress would seem to be being made, although Bavuma cautioned that “it’s only been three games; the journey is still long”, while acknowledging “it’s more of a mindset change; the skill has always been there”.
South Africa’s captain, his team’s top run-scorer in the series, was the best advertisement for the different approach. “It’s been enjoyable, not playing as if you’ve got the whole team on your shoulders — just going out, seeing the ball and trying to score,” he said.
“If, as a player, you are looking for the security that if you fail someone is going to continue to back you, I’ve never felt that. It’s just part of international cricket. But, in our team at the moment, if you play a certain way then guys are going to give you the rope that you deserve.
“I feel like a different Temba came out and showed up in the last three games. I’ll take the confidence from these games and try and make sure that flows into all the other games and formats.”
Bavuma discovered after that press conference that he had been signed by Sunrisers Eastern Cape for the remainder of the SA20. That he might not have had a gig to land had Tom Abell not left SEC early to captain England Lions in Sri Lanka couldn’t take the shine off Bavuma finally making it to the biggest party cricket. It felt like he had passed a test, proved a point, won a promotion.
A significant chunk of Bavuma’s cricketminded compatriots had taken it as a slap in the face when none of the six SA20 franchises bid for his services at the player auction in September. Closer to the truth was that a specialist batter with a career T20 strike rate of just 123.21 didn’t justify a hefty base price of R850,000, or almost USD49,000.
But it seems South Africans are determined to hitch their unhappiness to Bavuma, no matter what he does. His century was a superb innings by any estimate; a bold and polished statement of intent. You might have thought it would be worth celebrating wholeheartedly. Instead, too many subverted his achievement to whinge brattishly about a single newspaper’s poor choice to use a photograph of his dismissal, and not of any of his bristling strokes or his emotional celebration on reaching three figures, on its front page.
That the newspaper in question is published in Afrikaans and used to be part of South Africa’s white apartheid establishment fuelled this nonsense narrative. That its headlines and reporting on Bavuma’s feat shone with praise didn’t seem to matter. That another newspaper, published in English, identified him in a picture caption as a “Proteas batsman” also escaped notice. They’re called batters these days, and they might have mentioned that Bavuma was the captain.
Thanks to this cynical, artificial kerfuffle, the positivity that should have coloured the conversation in the wake of Bavuma’s century was drowned out by bullying right-wing attempts at remote censorship over what should have remained an obscure editorial decision.
If Bavuma and his team really have turned a corner, maybe they should take a step back and bring some of the fans with them.
Cricbuzz
Bulletproof Truth 