Can Temba help solve Faf’s conundrum?
FOR a team that has lost only one Test all season, South Africa are still a side with plenty of questions hovering around them in New Zealand.
Despite home series wins over the Black Caps (1-0) and Sri Lanka (3-0), in addition to the historic away triumph over Australia (2-1), this hardearned success has not quite unearthed all the solutions coach Russell Domingo and captain Faf du Plessis would have been seeking at the beginning of the season.
Dean Elgar hopefully provided at least one in the drawn Dunedin Test last week with a career-best 140 in the first innings, before following that up with 89 in the second.
However, his partner Stephen Cook cannot make such bold declarations after scoring a total of three runs at the University Oval.
Equally, JP Duminy’s classy 155 in the final Test against the Sri Lankans is drifting from memory with the left-hander having endured a torrid period across formats in New Zealand.
And then there’s Temba Bavuma. For all Bavuma’s potential, his last seven visits to the crease in Tests prior to the New Zealand tour, had yielded only 50 runs, with a highest score of 21. It would be safe to assume that the Lions right-hander would probably have been the batsman left out to accommodate ODI captain AB de Villiers’ return to the Test side.
But as fate would have it, De Villiers opted out of this New Zealand series and subsequent tour to England, which has allowed Bavuma, pictured, the opportunity to battle on. And like the little warrior that he is, Bavuma fought bravely in SA’s first innings in Dunedin with a determined 62 to keep the Proteas afloat and can now look forward to the second Test in Wellington tomorrow (12am start) with renewed confidence.
“I do feel that I was able to get some kind of batting rhythm,” Bavuma said yesterday. “Mentally, it was just being up for the fight, understanding that there will be pressure situations and just trying to find a way to get through those.”
Bavuma is certainly developing into the man the Proteas call on during a crisis. In Australia, Bavuma struck two gritty half-centuries in Perth and Hobart when his team required it more than ever – just like in the first Test in New Zealand.
He possesses a compact technique, utilising a solid method with bat and pad close together when pushing forward, and drives well off the back foot through a good transfer of weight. Throw in a solid temperament and it can be a formula for success in Test cricket.
These are qualities which are already appreciated within the confines of the Proteas dressing-room, but Bavuma knows that potential and promise now need to be converted into three-figure scores on a more regular basis if he is to push his personal statistics into the zone where he can lay claim to a “permanent” place in the Test side like Elgar has done.
“Obviously one is never happy, never satisfied with getting a fifty or a sixty, we know that for the team, especially batting in the middle order, we’ve got to get those big runs to put the team in a strong position. I will just try and build on that and not sleep on what happened in Dunedin,” Bavuma explained.
A century at the Basin Reserve to add to that momentous maiden ton at Newlands two seasons ago will certainly go a long way towards helping to solve Domingo and Du Plessis’ ongoing conundrums.