Ken Borland

Proteas skipper Temba Bavuma described it as one of the toughest days he has had as a captain as the mental preparation of his team for the crucial T20 World Cup match against the West Indies in Dubai was rocked by the CSA Board’s directive that all players must take the knee in support of BLM and the subsequent withdrawal from the side of key batsman Quinton de Kock because he chose not to do so.

It took South Africa a good 10 overs to get their mental focus back on track, in which time Evin Lewis had given the West Indies a blazing start, but the Proteas deserve enormous credit for the clinical display they produced thereafter in winning by eight wickets with 10 balls to spare.

“It was one of the toughest days I’ve had as the captain, but I’m just ecstatic that we were able to get into the right frame of mind and play the way we did against a powerhouse West Indies team,” Bavuma said after the impressive victory.

“We should not take this win lightly and I’m just very glad that we’ve now got our campaign started. We knew our batting in particular needed to improve and the way we were so clinical with the bat was a big step in the right direction.

“The bowlers have been fantastic the last while and they again showed their skill and class, it was a good day in the field in the end. What happened with the directive and Quinny pulling out was not ideal, but they were the cards we were dealt as a team and it was good that the guys were able to represent the country as well as they did today,” Bavuma said.

While losing De Kock is a major blow – and it could well be for the rest of the tournament – Bavuma expressed the hope that the team, brought closer together by hardship, will grow more and more as a unit in their remaining group matches against Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and England.

“It’s going to be a tough couple of days for the group as we try and find out a bit better about the decisions that have been made, but we have to respect those whether we agree or not.

“Unfortunately the team still has to get the job done and it’s important to find a way to get into the right mental space. And the tournament is obviously only going to get tougher.

“So it’s important that we stay even more together as a team. Hopefully we can now create some momentum. But we need to focus on matters on the field.

“We will only lose energy as a team if we focus on things on the outside, and I would hope we are judged by how well we hit or bowl the ball and not by what causes we support or how we do it.

“We need to have our eyes on the ball,” Bavuma said.

The Springbok camp was rocked by three positive Covid tests on Sunday, but director of rugby Rassie Erasmus said the notion that this would put the two Tests against Georgia and the entire British and Irish Lions tour in doubt was incorrect.

Erasmus revealed that Durban-based wing Sbu Nkosi, tighthead prop Vincent Koch of Saracens and scrumhalf Herschel Jantjies, who has already had Covid, were the three players who tested positive when the squad gathered at their Johannesburg hotel. All three players are asymptomatic but training on Sunday was cancelled as a precautionary measure.

“We’ve been in camp for three weeks without any problems, but this was the first time everyone really assembled, the first time we’ve had all squad members with guys coming in from all over. The three guys who tested positive have to be confined as we fall in now with British and Irish Lions tour protocols. We have advised the tour medical committee and now we wait for the next step.

“But it’s not a big worry for us, I’m fairly confident these are isolated cases, those players have just been unlucky. We’ve followed very strict protocols at our hotel, we weren’t allowed to be in one room before testing and the guys could not go to their own rooms for five to seven hours until they got the results – just to make sure that contacts are minimal.

“I don’t think the Georgia game on Friday is in any doubt, we have a squad of 45 especially for this reason. We will never not have enough players, we can draft players in because they are on testing regimes with their provinces. I’m fairly sure very few guys are infected, this came from something external and the guys have not done anything wrong,” Erasmus said on Sunday.

While the positive tests have spiked the Springboks’ plans on Sunday, most of the groundwork for the first Test against Georgia will already have been laid down. Coach Jacques Nienaber said the Springboks had to be adaptable in these harrowing times.

“It’s not ideal, we would have loved a normal week flow, but it’s important in these times of Covid and changing environments, that we are adaptable, that is key,” Nienaber said.

Both Nkosi and Jantjies were likely to feature in the squad for the Georgia Test at Loftus Versfeld, but the heavy frame of powerhouse Koch was only likely to be seen later because he has been in England and has not been working with the Springboks over the last three weeks.