Gqeberha – As the Proteas Test side slowly takes shape, captain Temba Bavuma’s contributions will come in handy and go a long way in showing his young team what is required from them at Test level.
The Proteas wrapped up a 2-0 series sweep over the West Indies at the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg on Saturday afternoon. A captain’s knock of 172 runs from Temba Bavuma in the third innings of the match played a big role in ensuring that the hosts closed off the season with a series win at home.
The second Test century for Bavuma will certainly go a long way in ushering his troops to new heights in Test cricket.
"It gives me a lot of confidence because as a leader you always want to be leading from the front with whatever your discipline is. Me being a batter, it’s always at the top of my mind that I want to score runs,” said Bavuma.
“I want to be able to speak amongst the guys and speak within the change room with good authority. Things in this Test went my way in terms of the bat and my contribution played a massive role in terms of the victory today.”
It was not only a Bavuma show at the Bullring, there were notable contributions from Aiden Markram, Gerald Coetzee, Tony de Zorzi and the others in the Proteas Test team.
Bavuma was pleased to see his troops show what they can do in the longer format of the game.
“There’s a lot of positives to take from the series. A guy like Aiden came back into the team and led the way with the bat for us. I could say he was the difference between the batters this whole series. It was good to see Aiden again carry his form in the red ball side,” said Bavuma.
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“A guy like Gerald Coetzee as well also getting a show and showing us what he can do. He strengthens that bowling dynamic, he brings that aggression, that intensity and that fighting spirit. I think the bowlers as a unit, they strengthened that tag that they have that they are quite a formidable unit. It’s good for them to carry on with that confidence,"
Despite the series whitewash, there’s still work to do for Bavuma and the entire batting group in Test match cricket. The frequent batting collapses in the tours to Australia and England last year also haunted them in the West Indies series.
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Bavuma told the media that they are conscious of their shortcomings with the bat and that they are not yet a finished article by winning one series at home.
“With the batting there’s good, but there’s areas that we can improve on a lot. We spoke about guys putting on match winning performances with the bat and Aiden did that in the first Test and I was able to do that in the second Test.
“It was my first series as a captain. It would be premature to draw conclusions for us as a team. The journey is still a long one for us as a team. Over a certain number of matches can we really draw conclusions. It’s just a matter of growing with all the good that we have done and to keep improving. The biggest test is when we travel, I think that’s when we will see what the team is made of.” He added.
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