Temba Bavuma is not afraid of challenges. The upcoming Test series against India is one such challenge that the South Africa skipper aims to conquer.
For the opening Test, beginning at the Eden on Friday, Bavuma began his practice on Tuesday. But his preparation started much before he stepped on the Eden turf.
Though this Test will be his first since the World Test Championship (WTC) final against Australia at Lord’s in June, where he had picked up a hamstring injury, Bavuma was not totally away from red-ball cricket. In the run-up to this series, he played a game for South Africa A in Bengaluru and also got a fifty.
Bavuma thinks that the long layoff from Test cricket has been a blessing in disguise as it has kept him “quite fresh and raring to go.”
“Test cricket, rather international cricket, is tough in its own right. And that is the
challenge, right? India, obviously, is different to what we are used to back home. So, whether you’ve been playing for the last five months or whether you haven’t, it’s always going to be a challenge for you to adapt your game,” the diminutive 35-year-old from Langa, a township outside Cape Town, told The Telegraph on Tuesday.
“It’s my second week here, as I was with the South Africa A team. We played in Bengaluru at the BCCI Centre of Excellence, so we had a nice opportunity
there to bat out in the middle. And I guess we started to figure out ways through which we can be successful in these conditions.
“But yeah, it’s never easy, you know, coming off a long layoff, more from a technical or skill point of view. I think mentally, you come in at an advantage where you’re generally quite fresh and raring to go. But I think it’s just probably a case of finding your best way in which you can feel your rhythm, your flow of the bat, your hands and all of that,” Bavuma elaborated.
Of all the South African teams that have toured India over the last decade or so, this Bavuma-led unit appears to be the most confident, especially after their WTC triumph.
“We’d really like to build on that performance (in Rawalpindi). India are not a side against whom you can start slowly or allow them to get in the game, so we have to be on it from the word ‘go’.
“But yeah, confidence is something that’s there in us as a team. We’re riding the belief that comes with being world Test champions, and we want to play like Test champions,” Bavuma emphasised.
Spin attack
On paper, India are certainly stronger in the spin department. However, the current form of left-arm orthodox Keshav Maharaj and off-spinner Simon Harmer is worth taking note of. While Harmer finished the Pakistan series with 13 wickets, Maharaj, featuring in just one Test, had nine scalps.
“I enjoy the competitiveness that exists between Simon and Kesh. It’s a healthy one. And as a captain, it makes your job a lot easier when you’ve got two spinners who can control the game.
“In subcontinent conditions, your spinners become your attacking options, and we now have two frontline spinners who play that role. We’ve always relied on our fast bowling, but the extra spinner in Simon will make us even more formidable now,” the skipper asserted.
Rabada role
What are his expectations from pace spearhead Kagiso Rabada? Wickets, obviously. But there is something else, too.
“Look, if there’s something on offer there for the seamers, KG will definitely find it for us. But we’ve seen that with the bat, too, he can hit a couple towards the end.
Lower-order runs are quite key here in India. So, we’ll definitely be welcoming his batting heroics out there,” Bavuma said.
Rabada’s 61-ball 71 at No.11 and his 98-run last-wicket partnership with Senuran Muthusamy in the first innings of the Rawalpindi Test were massive in the Proteas’ eight-wicket series-levelling victory.