Ken Borland

Proteas captain Temba Bavuma did not explicitly say it was another case of South Africa choking at a cricket world cup after their shock loss to the Netherlands saw them eliminated from the T20 showpiece on Sunday, but he did admit that notorious tag would now be hung around their necks, like so many of their predecessors.

Needing to just beat qualifiers the Netherlands to make the semi-finals, the Proteas instead came out flat and uninspired, allowing the Dutch to post a challenging 158/4, and then batting limply to only manage 145/8 in reply.

“That tag will always be there until we get to a final and come out on the right side of it,” Bavuma said in the aftermath. “We have nothing else to blame, everything was in our own hands.

“We had the confidence, the belief and the form behind us, but when it mattered we just couldn’t do the business. There needs to be an element of learning to make sure young guys like Tristan Stubbs and Marco Jansen don’t make the same mistakes in future.

“But we are still going to carry that monkey on our backs, that tag. We knew we had to win the game, but I didn’t feel any different type of pressure personally.

“It’s very hard to say it was different because we knew we had to beat India and we won that game. We had the opportunity to make the semi-finals and we just did not take it,” Bavuma said.

Of his own future in the shortest format, Bavuma said he will park any decision on the captaincy until a new fulltime coach is appointed. The skipper admitted that all the speculation over his own poor batting form had also been unsettling.

“It’s been a tricky time and to consider the captaincy now, a lot of my thinking would be emotional. I probably will think about it and speak to the relevant people.

“We have to see who comes in as coach, generally the new person coming in might want a different leader to execute their vision. But I think I carried myself with dignity through the good and bad times.

“Mentally all the talk does affect you. You try to manage your mental space as much as you can, unfortunately social media and whatever is said about you, always seems to get to you no matter how you try to control it.

“I’ve tried to keep a level head through the good and bad times and stay as close to myself as possible. Not just for myself but for the group, who will now take a lot of flak, and rightfully so,” Bavuma said.

If Temba Bavuma received any advice from his predecessors as Proteas captain it was probably to beware of the suits and the victorious skipper said after their amazing ODI series whitewash of India that one of the hardest parts of his job has been managing the off-field distractions.

The Cricket South Africa board’s antipathy towards their players came to a head on the eve of the ODI series when they charged head coach Mark Boucher with gross misconduct, due to allegations made by the flawed Social Justice and Nation-Building report that more than 20 years ago the record-breaking wicketkeeper sang a team song that contained racial slurs.

This after the Proteas had pulled off a remarkable Test series win over India, knocking them off the No.1 ranking. The tremendous fight the team has been showing, and their clear growth in terms of skills and composure, make it clear that it must be a happy changeroom and a healthy environment. Which is now seemingly under attack from their own board.

“It has not been easy, to be honest,” Bavuma said after completing the 3-0 win with a thrilling four-run win at Newlands. “There have been a lot of dynamics that need to be managed.

“The big thing is to try and keep the cricket as the main focus. It’s been a really challenging time for the players and management, because we’ve been under a lot of scrutiny.

“So I’ve had to manage the conversations we’re having and ensure that our energies are 100% towards performance. It’s been a challenge, but a privilege as well, and I’ve enjoyed it,” Bavuma said.

A dominant batting display by the Proteas, who for so long struggled in that department, saw Bavuma call his fellow batsmen a “revelation”.

“The batting unit has really been a revelation for us. Before we were scoring fifties and sixties and then finding a way to get out. But the coach gave us a challenge to start making hundreds.

“We scored three of them and we now have five guys averaging more than 40 in ODIs, which gives us a lot of confidence. It’s a formidable batting line-up,” Bavuma said.

Apart from topping the Test series averages (73.66), Bavuma also averaged 51 in the ODIs. Clearly the captaincy has agreed with him.

“It seems to have had a knock-on effect in my own performance. I enjoy the thinking side, the tactical side, and maybe that has made me a bit more clearer on what I want to do.

“I’m always thinking about the situations, how to counter, and maybe that’s why my form came back. For me, it means a lot to look back on the series and I know I contributed significantly.

“It makes it even better and to convincingly beat an Indian team of that calibre and pedigree speaks a lot to my captaincy.

“It’s still early days in my captaincy career though, I’ll take the acknowledgement but I definitely won’t get ahead of myself,” Bavuma said.

–

Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer has shown a greater willingness than any of his predecessors to pick his players from across the globe and the late call-up of Juan Smith to the Rugby Championship squad brought the number of overseas-based players to eight out of 30.

The team to play Argentina on Saturday in Pretoria includes five of those eight travellers – Bakkies Botha (Toulon), Bryan Habana (Toulon), Francois Louw (Bath), Ruan Pienaar (Ulster) and Morne Steyn (Stade Francais) – and this shows the high regard in which Meyer holds European rugby, and the French league in particular.

Apart from the thorny issue of overseas-based players, the other feature of the current Springbok team that causes the mutters in many South African supporters is the number of veteran players that are still involved.

Ten of the squad have more than 50 caps and Meyer has persisted with 2007 World Cup winners like Botha, Jean de Villiers, Bismarck and Jannie du Plessis, Habana, Pienaar, Gurthro Steenkamp and Smith, while Schalk Burger, Fourie du Preez, Jaque Fourie, Victor Matfield and JP Pietersen are still very much in Meyer’s plans.

The value of experience is a recurring theme amongst the Springbok leadership.

“It’s very exciting to have such good experience and young guys with exceptional talent putting pressure on them for their places. It’s a good balance for us and you see how guys like Handre Pollard and Jan Serfontein played unbelievably well when they started in the incoming Tests,” captain De Villiers said this week.

“We’re in the ideal position to bring youngsters in … look at Lood de Jager playing with Victor Matfield. He knows that he has that experience next to him and that’s why guys like Juan Smith also add value. They’ve been through it all, they can tell the youngsters to ‘do it like this’. It speeds up the process of making inexperienced players experienced,” De Villiers added.

“You can’t buy experience, like we saw when Bakkies came back late last year. Guys like him and Juan are inspirational, they never give up and they’re an example to all of us in how to keep going,” defence coach John McFarland said.

While France as a nation might be going through a bad patch in rugby, there is no doubting the strength of their domestic teams. Performances there clearly carry plenty of weight with Meyer, judging by the number of players, some of them controversial selections, that he has called up from France.

There has also been a concerted effort behind the scenes to improve relationships between the Springboks and the overseas clubs, after the ill-feeling of the Peter de Villiers era.

The channels of communication are considerably more open these days and Springbok manager Ian Schwartz ensures that all clubs with South African players are kept appraised of Meyer’s plans for them.

Toulon were the first to know about Smith’s potential return to the international stage and there seems to be no reason for the mutual love affair between South Africa and the double champions not to continue.

Toulon owner Mourad Boudjellal is known to be a massive admirer of South African players and even the coaching skills of Meyer are highly regarded by the 54-year-old businessman. So much so that Boudjellal has approached Meyer a couple of times about coaching Toulon; clearly neither party will ever want to burn the cordial bridges that exist between them.