Ken Borland

It’s been a long and sometimes potholed road for Temba Bavuma, but the Proteas vice-captain will play his 49^th Test in the second match against New Zealand and he says he now feels fully valued and accepted as a leader in the team.

Bavuma made his Test debut way back in 2014, in the Boxing Day match against the West Indies at St George’s Park, which was ruined by rain. Six matches later, his maiden Test century, against England at Newlands, was historic and one of the most memorable moments in South African cricket after the return from isolation.

But as with most of his team-mates, 2019 was an annus horribilis for Bavuma as he only averaged 19.84 in 13 innings. He was dropped and has come back stronger, averaging 46.16 since then.

“I have more peace about how I fit in now, my role in the team,” Bavuma said. “Every game does not feel like my last opportunity now. My role is not just about the runs but my presence, how I contribute to building the culture and environment.

“It has helped me to be more at ease. It’s also helped that I’ve played a fair number of games now and I’ve learnt to accept that there will be good and bad days. If it’s a bad day, then you need to have perspective.

“They don’t define who we are, although we take the lessons from them. Technically, I’ve just tinkered here and there, but I’ve not done much apart from trying to be as still as I can be when the ball is delivered.

“It’s more about the mental processes. But the main thing you want when you come in as a young debutant is to be accepted as part of the team, that’s the main way you perform. And I truly believe that I am accepted and valued in terms of my input, and I think that’s why I have had good performances over the last little while,” Bavuma said.

The 31-year-old Bavuma is a sucker for honest leadership, being that kind of skipper himself with the Proteas white-ball teams or the Central Gauteng Lions. Which is why he has dovetailed so well with Test captain Dean Elgar.

“Dean and I have played alongside each other for quite a while, ever since playing for SA A in 2012/13,” Bavuma said. “The relationship has always been built on honesty, there’s no bullshit with Dean.

“He can be very blunt, he will call you out if you need it, but if you’ve done good then he lets you know as well. His character resonates with me and he wants the same sort of feedback from me.

“As his vice-captain, I try to be a calming voice because he can be quite emotional. But I understand his vision and I back it 100%, and I also back him as a leader and player.

“His success is my success and vice-versa, and we both just want to bring back the respect for the Proteas badge and leave the team in a much better state,” Bavuma said.

People sometimes like to think of T20 cricket as being as complicated a strategic game as, say, backgammon, but for David Miller, the Proteas need to keep it as simple as possible in their crunch World Cup game against England in Sharjah on Saturday.

Of course South Africa have worked hard on implementing the right tactics against the tournament favourites, but Miller said the team, since bouncing back from their loss to Australia in their opening match, have broken their play down into small bits.

“We’ve bounced back from the loss and been really good in the last three games,” Miller said. “We have a blueprint that we are striving to perfect, and although there has been huge growth, we are still learning.

“It’s a massive game for us but we mustn’t be looking at the end result. We have to stick to our processes, take it ball-by-ball, over-by over. It’s a big cliché, but we have to do that.

“We need to be clear in our planning and preparation against England, we want to simplify what we have to do, and it’s important to really enjoy ourselves out there as well,” Miller said.

While South Africa have certainly not cured all their batting issues after some ham-fisted efforts in recent times, to have Miller back in peak form after injury is a massive bonus and the successive sixes he smoked in the final over to beat Sri Lanka will live long in the memory.

Top-level sport only loans its competitors confidence depending on the vagaries of their results, but the 32-year-old left-hander said the Proteas currently feel like they are riding a wave, having not only won consistently over the last six months but also, and certainly not coincidentally, having kept the same squad of players together.

“We’re nice and focused and ready for the next game, the team is in a good space and feeling refreshed. We’ve had a similar squad for the last six months and we’ve built up a really nice bond.

“We’re finding ways to win matches and that makes us really chuffed. We’ve won 12 of our last 14 games and that has definitely given us confidence going into this must-win match.

“In those tight moments in a game, you grab hold of every bit of confidence that you can. Winning does not necessarily have to be pretty – some of our games have been clinical and smooth, and some we still won when our performance was neither here nor there.

“We’ve happened to win one or two close games now, and hopefully that confidence, momentum and growth can keep going. Having the same squad means that we’ve learnt how to play with each other, what makes your team-mates tick,” Miller said.

“My emotions come out sometimes,” ace Proteas spinner Tabraiz Shamsi admitted at the weekend and he was not just talking about his reaction to the on-field battle but also the way the South African team has been criticised of late.

Shamsi produced yet another man-of-the-match display, taking three for 20 in four overs as the Proteas bundled Sri Lanka out for just 103 in the second T20 International in Colombo, setting up a thumping nine-wicket win with 35 balls to spare that clinched a third successive series win for South Africa.

The left-arm wrist-spinner was only hit for one boundary, a massive blow into the sightscreen by Dasun Shanaka. But the next delivery Shamsi ripped through the gate to bowl the Sri Lanka captain, leading to a pumped-up celebration. It was one of many on the night by the Proteas and Shamsi admitted that the team has been extra-motivated by all the negativity over the them back at home.

“My emotions come out sometimes and it’s partly because I waited a long time for a place in the team. And then when someone smokes you like that, I can’t use the words here that are in my head, but then to get the batsman out after a moment like that leads to great satisfaction.

“I realise now that getting hit for six is part-and-parcel of T20. There’s no embarrassment, all the great spinners have been hit for six, and my mindset has changed a lot. But if you hit me for six, you must know that I’m coming back for you with the next ball I bowl,” Shamsi said.

“There’s a lot of perceptions about us, people looking negatively at the team and the way we are playing. But we are not rubbish, my opinion is that we are actually quite good, on par with the great South African teams, we just need to play more international cricket. We’re on a run at the moment, winning three series in a row, we’re playing for the country and trying to make the country proud,” Shamsi said.

While the 31-year-old continues to justify his ranking as the world’s No.1 T20 bowler, Shamsi praised the help he has been getting from his friends in the rest of the spin attack.

“Sri Lanka have prepared spinning pitches thinking it was our weakness, but we are capable of fighting fire with fire. The majority of our overs are now spin because we have so many quality spinners, whereas there may have been a reluctance in the past to play them and we would only have four-to-eight overs of spin before.

“It’s a refreshing change that we are picking the team for the conditions. And it’s nice for me to have all that back-up because it means I can be utilised in different ways,” Shamsi said.

The third and final T20 will be played tomorrow at the same Premadasa Stadium.

There is an unfortunate tendency in South African sport that a coach sometimes cannot win whether his team are losing or winning. We’ve seen it before with former Springbok coach Peter de Villiers and now with current Proteas coach Russell Domingo.

It’s the unfortunate attitude that if a team is losing – as the Proteas were for 2015 and the first half of 2016 – then it must be the coach’s fault, but if they are winning, as Domingo’s charges are currently and the Springboks did under De Villiers in 2009, then it must have nothing to do with the coach and be all the players’ doing!

If people are going to blame and criticise the coach during the lean times then they have to credit and praise the coach when things are going well. His influence cannot just extend in the one direction.

Domingo gets to be seen way less on television than the Springbok rugby coach, so perhaps he has less opportunity to convey his knowledge of the game, but it was disturbing last weekend when Cricket South Africa dropped what can only be termed a bombshell. They were going to be taking applications for his position and he would need to reapply himself. It’s like being in a relationship and being told “it’s time we see other people”.

I have been a critic of Domingo in the past, believing he was no longer able to get the best out of the Proteas, but their form in the last six months has been superb and clearly the coach has them all pulling in the same direction.

A 5-0 limited-overs whitewash of Australia and a Test series win Down Under, without AB de Villiers and Dale Steyn, rank amongst some of the finest achievements in South African cricket history, and so far Sri Lanka have been dealt with ruthlessly, save for the T20s when some experimentation took place.

But CSA believe now is the time to say we need to start looking for another coach!

I agree, depending on how results go in the Champions Trophy and the Tests in England, that August may be time for a change given that Domingo will have been in the job for four years, but what if he wins the ICC event and then beats the Poms on their home turf? If he wants to continue, surely he would be the obvious choice?

Sure, you have to plan ahead and put out some feelers to see who Domingo’s successor will be, particularly if things go badly in England. But you don’t have to announce to the whole world that you are no longer sure about the guy who is currently doing a great job with the team.

Having been told quite clearly that uncertainty about the future was a major reason for players and coaches leaving South Africa, you would have thought CSA would be doing everything in their power to reassure a Proteas team and management that they have security, given how well they have been doing.

The talk from official sources has been that CSA don’t want to create the impression that Domingo will automatically just keep getting contract extensions – it’s all to do with the fine print of the labour regulations apparently – but the gap between the end of the trip to England (the last Test ends on August 8) and the start of the new summer with the first Test against Bangladesh starting on September 28 is surely long enough to sort out whatever the decision is.

Of course the list of possible replacements needs to be sussed out, but why does the post of Proteas head coach need to be advertised? Surely the successor to Domingo should be headhunted?

Particularly since the obvious next coach is working just across the road from the CSA offices at the Wanderers.