Temba Bavuma played just four Tests before batting for the first time in one for India, as the least experienced specialist batsman in an already beaten team. He opened the knock, which he told ESPNcricinfo today was “the best thing that could have happened because batting in the middle order was very difficult,” but at the time, he described it as “the hardest part of batting I’ve ever had to do in my life.”
If only he knew how difficult it was.
A decade later, Bavuma realizes that “Test cricket doesn’t get any easier.” He lists the 2018 sandpapergate series against Australia, when he had just returned from a broken hand, as “very difficult because he didn’t play any cricket”, and the 2019 series in India, which South Africa lost 3-0, as “very difficult as well”, but his strongest Test knock was arguably his most recent. In the World Test Championship final, seeking a top score at Lord’s against Australia, Bavuma was struggling with a hamstring injury and scored the most important 66 of his career.
Interestingly, the 66 is also Bavuma’s highest first-class score in the Indian subcontinent, for South Africa A in 2015, where he batted just 22 times. That innings came a few months before the Test series. This time, Bavuma was in India before most of his teammates, once again playing for the first team as he returned to the longest-serving squad. After making his debut against India A, he scored 59 last week in South Africa A’s successful chase of 417 runs. More importantly, he learned his game plan in the Indian subcontinent after missing the South Africa series in Bangladesh last year and Pakistan this year due to injury.
“Coming out of a long layoff from Test cricket, it was just a matter of getting back on the field and proving my fitness to myself and everyone around me and spending some time at the crease,” Bavuma said in the pre-match press conference. “I think that was important – trying to make any adjustments I needed to with the conditions here in the subcontinent. I spent a lot of time on my feet on the field and that was good exercise.”
It was also an opportunity to remind himself of what lies ahead. Bavuma is now the most experienced specialist player in a team that knows success far better than his counterpart. South Africa, at full strength, have not lost a series under Bavuma (the provisional 2024 squad that lost in New Zealand did not include him, nor any of the participants on this tour). Its shares continue to rise.
“When we go into a series, there are a lot of expectations for us as a team to maintain our world champion status,” Bavuma said. “From a confidence point of view, it’s a case where we walk proudly with that badge, as we are known as champions. We have a great opportunity now to face India on their own terms. It’s a great opportunity for us to stamp ourselves with that title.”
While Bavuma said “there’s not much” that can beat winning the World Trade Centre, “winning in India is a close second to that”. Not England. Not Australia. But India, because “we couldn’t do it for a long time.”
South Africa last won a Test in India in 2010, when none of the current crop had featured in international cricket. They have made two tours of India since then with modest results, losing 3-0 on each occasion. They last won a series there in 2000, when Tristan Stubbs and Marko Janssen weren’t born. The description of “the longest period” seems reasonable, especially given India’s tremendous record on home soil. South Africa aside, no team had beaten them in a home series for twelve years between England’s win in 2012 and New Zealand’s victory last year. This is 18 consecutive home series wins for India which puts the scale of the task into perspective. “We understand the scale of the challenge,” Bavuma said. “For some of us, there have been painful moments coming from India. We know what it is like. We are looking forward to the challenge.”
Bavuma knows this better than most. His latest heartbreak in India was more recent than anyone else’s and did not involve Tests. That came in the 2023 ODI World Cup, where he led South Africa to the semi-finals but was the only batsman in the top five not to score a century and played with a hamstring injury in the knockout round. The memes were cruel and included pictures of Bavuma appearing to sleep in a pre-tournament captain’s press when the camera angle caught him looking awkwardly at his hand and being pushed in a wheelchair by the batsmen who were scoring runs. This experience could have either turned him away from leadership altogether or made him stronger, and it appears to have done the latter.
“It wasn’t the greatest World Cup for me from a batting point of view, so I can understand why there’s criticism, but maybe it’s from a player’s point of view,” he said. “From a captain’s point of view, it always feels like it’s a process of discovery. You’re always learning more about yourself. Maybe you start by understanding how you want things to go, but over time, as things happen, you work with different coaches, and that generally comes into your whole idea. Now, I feel more comfortable in myself. There’s no situation of having to prove myself, prove the players, or prove it to people back home. “The results we’ve achieved speak for themselves. The kind of reaction I get from players also speaks for itself. “All of this is not going to go away as long as you’re in these situations, and it’s just something you have to accept.”
In the South African locker room, Bavuma is indisputably highly respected. “He is our best player. It’s that simple,” South Africa coach Shukri Konrad said. “If you look at the last two years, he was probably one of the best players in the world.”
Since February 2023, the time when Conrad took over the Test side, among batsmen who have scored more than 500 runs in Tests, Bavuma has averaged 56.93, the sixth highest.
Among South African fans, Bavuma’s perception changed from seeing him as a bit player to someone who tried hard but was unable to convert scores into centuries to being seen as crucial in the process, largely due to his role in winning the club. “I feel there is a big shift in mentality towards the Proteas and towards cricket,” Bavuma said. “There’s been a lot of appreciation and love shown for the team, but also for the individuals within the team. For me, probably even more so, the appreciation for being within the team.”
And globally? That remains to be determined, and Bavuma knows it. He is looking forward to at least two more years in the game, as an ODI captain with a home World Cup to prepare and as a Test captain in the current cycle, which is where he believes this team will be truly measured. “We have our own goals,” he added. “We know we want to do it as a team, we know at what point we want to start measuring ourselves. We know that after two years, we can’t see that as a proper legacy. Winning the Test Championship was huge in a lot of ways but we’d like to see ourselves in four years’ time. We’ll continue to do what we set out to do two years ago.”
By then, Bavuma will be 37, has played international cricket for 13 years and will likely be on the cusp of retirement. He probably won’t play another Test series in India between now and then which makes this series crucial to his place in the cricket pantheon.
