Ken Borland

Temba Bavuma said on Tuesday that putting aside the emotion and focusing on the situation in the present helped him cope with the heavy pressures of leading the Proteas at the T20 World Cup.

The relatively new South African white-ball captain has drawn widespread praise for his handling of the usual off-field issues that plagued the team as well as his deft hand on the field as the Proteas exceeded expectations by just missing out on the semifinals on nett run-rate, despite winning four of their five group games.

“There’s always some type of pressure around me and I’ve learnt ways to deal with it. I put aside the emotion and deal with the issue at hand,” Bavuma said.

“The Quinton de Kock situation all happened quite quickly and there wasn’t really any time to consult anyone. I had to weigh up both sides and express an opinion.

“Sometimes it’s best when you don’t have too much time to think about things, you just speak to the merits of the matter at hand and that means you’ll be more authentic.

“It was always going to be a big responsibility to be captain and the pressure and expectation at a World Cup comes from all angles. But I have seen a shift in the energy and I sense that the backing and support for me is now there,” Bavuma said.

The skipper acknowledged that all the off-field noise surrounding the Proteas does eat the players up inside, but in a classic case of make-or-break, he said it strengthened the bond between the players, which was expressed in their never-say-die performances on the field.

“Matters off the field have put us under pressure, they have been challenging times but we have been able to get through them as a team. There were moments that could have broken us or pulled us together, and it turned out being more of the latter.

“I was put in a situation that was very hard to prepare for and I’m grateful that I got out of there. I now have a lot more confidence with the team in terms of trust and backing.

“I do believe we are in a better space as a team. We found a way to get together as a team and really fought for each other. That gave us the ability to play in those pressure moments, we did exceptionally well in those.

“There have been massive positives from this World Cup, even though we are now sitting at home watching on our screens, and we need to make sure we grow from strength-to-strength,” Bavuma said.

Temba Bavuma’s outstanding leadership – sensitive to the unity of the team but also decisive and intuitive – at the T20 World Cup has shown that he is the man to lead the Proteas in the next edition of the tournament which will be held in less than a year’s time in Australia.

To have such a strong, inspirational captain is a massive positive for South African cricket, and Bavuma also batted with trademark tenacity in tough conditions, averaging 30 for the tournament. He will want to work on his strike-rate of 108, but that was higher than Quinton de Kock’s!

The T20 World Cup in Australia should be a high-scoring affair and South Africa’s batting will need to become more attacking. Knowing Bavuma, whose overall strike-rate in T20s is 125, he will be working very hard on that aspect of his game in the interim.

But with the huge strides made by Aiden Markram and Rassie van der Dussen, plus the continued reliability of David Miller as a finisher, Bavuma is likely to need to move up the order and open the batting with Quinton de Kock, who remains South Africa’s most dangerous T20 batsman.

But the way Markram has transformed into a boundary-clearing finisher, as well as still being able to play the building and changing gears role like Van der Dussen has done so well, is another huge positive for the Proteas.

South Africa’s bowling attack continued to perform as an outstanding unit in the UAE. They have a variety of skills to cover a pretty catholic range of conditions.

Anrich Nortje, who tormented batsmen with both his sheer pace and great control, and Kagiso Rabada are a fearsome pair of fast bowlers, with Lungi Ngidi waiting in the wings.

South Africa’s spin-bowling strength, led by Tabraiz Shamsi and Keshav Maharaj, has been the defining force of their great run in T20 cricket – their win over No.1 side England means they have won 13 of their last 15 matches.

Dwaine Pretorius, who took nine wickets and conceded just 6.88 runs-per-over bowling mostly at the death, has shown he is a cool and wily cat, and Wiaan Mulder is waiting in the wings with a package of all-round skills that might just be better suited to Australian conditions.

In terms of depth, Bjorn Fortuin, Reeza Hendricks and Heinrich Klaasen were also part of the squad in the UAE and they have all shown the ability to shine at international level. Add George Linde and Andile Phehlukwayo to that list and it is clear there is quality back-up in most positions.

Of course coach Mark Boucher would love some more players to put in consistently dominant performances at domestic level to add to that depth.

But there are a whole lot of reasons to feel hopeful about the future of this Proteas team and fans should be licking their lips in anticipation of their further development.

When a South African leader talks about finding an extra 5% it’s normally the Minister of Finance trying to balance the books in a time of constrained fiscus, but Proteas captain Temba Bavuma admitted on Friday that this is what his team will need to do to beat England in Sharjah and maintain their hopes of qualifying for the T20 World Cup semi-finals.

Depending on Australia’s margin of victory or defeat against the West Indies in Saturday’s earlier game in Abu Dhabi, South Africa could advance to the semi-finals even if they lose narrowly to England or could still be knocked out even if they beat the favourites.

Bavuma said the Proteas’ focus was simply on winning, and to do that they needed to be at their best on Saturday.

“We need to play our best cricket tomorrow and our first port of call is the win. Although our cricket has been good so far, we need to find a way to add an extra 5% in all departments,” Bavuma said.

“England have had the better of us lately, so we have to be at our best against them. We can’t leave it to individuals, we can’t rely on individual brilliance, it’s all about us as a team.

“We want to show the same character we have done and fight to the end. Every game we have tailored our strategy according to the opposition and England are obviously a very good team.

“So we will come up with plans that speak to England’s strengths and weaknesses, but mentally our approach should not be any different. The players and management have been through a lot and we have grown as a team,” Bavuma said.

Bavuma may be a playful character out of the spotlight, but he is clearly taking the responsibility of leading the national team at a World Cup most seriously. He is also extremely diligent about fulfilling his batting role, over which there has been much chatter recently. His strike-rate of 108.33 has been a particular focus, as was his run-a-ball innings of 46 against Sri Lanka the last time they played in Sharjah.

“If you look at conditions, they have not been freeflowing and you can’t just come in and hit the first ball out of the middle of the bat. We’ve really had to graft as a batting unit.

“I feel I can do a role up front or in the middle to hold the game and allow the big-hitters to get into the game. We’ve seen that’s worked in this World Cup, we feel it’s what’s best and we back it.

“We really do know now after the Sri Lanka game that the pitch in Sharjah will be on the low side. In terms of our batting, we took the game quite deep and what we have learnt is that we should have pulled the trigger a bit earlier,” Bavuma said.

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.