Key Points:
He returned as the captain of the team that came to India and also played in a match of South Africa A team before the Test to check his match fitness. This is an example of commitment to the team.
Delhi: After India’s defeat in Kolkata Test against South Africa, the storm that has arisen and the fire that has started on social media, it can be easily understood how big a defeat the visiting team gave to India. That too with a captain who was not fit till a few days ago, Temba Bavuma was not in the South Africa team which drew the series 1-1 in Pakistan. He returned as the captain of the team that came to India and also played in a match of South Africa A team before the Test to check his match fitness. This is an example of commitment to the team.
Only Bavuma’s return became the necessary balance for the South African team, not only the leadership role but also the responsibility of managing the team’s young batting order. This is what Bavuma did in Kolkata. Before the start of the series, both India and South Africa were behind in the required points in the World Test Championship and the series was special for both the teams. In such a situation, Kolkata was such a test:
- In which for the first time after 48 years it happened that no Indian batsman scored even 40 runs.
- Bavuma scored a fifty in the same Test and his 55*, the only fifty of the Test on this low-scoring and strangely behaved pitch, is a score of which Bavuma will always be proud. Only 4 fours in 136 balls and this proved to be the most special performance of the test.
*Bavuma’s 44-run partnership with Corbin Bosch took South Africa’s lead beyond 100 runs and put India on the backfoot. - With Test wins, Bavuma has now captained Bavuma to 10 wins in 11 Tests and believe me, the record of 10 wins in the least Test is now in Bavuma’s name.
- Another proof of how he is fulfilling the responsibility of the captain is that as a captain-batsman, his batting average in Tests is 57 but in the Tests played only as a batsman, he has an average of 38.42.
- As captain, 969 runs in 11 Tests, which is more than the record of the team or any other player in the same number of Tests.
Does Bavuma, who has performed like this, get the praise he rightly deserves? Perhaps lack of glamor is most responsible for this. Bavuma does not have any special reach on social media and perhaps this is the factor due to which many experts do not mention his name even while writing the top 5 captains of today’s cricket.
After this success, now the target is even bigger and now the focus is on winning the Test series. This is not impossible with Bavuma and in that his message to the team is ‘I am there!’ The South African team is now moving out of the choker circle, along with them: the win against Pakistan on the Boxing Day Test last year in which a 9th wicket partnership turned the tables, winning the World Test Championship final with the second-highest run chase and now the first win in India after almost 15 years. That’s why Bavuma deserves praise.
