Proteas captain Temba Bavuma hopes that his first One Day International World Cup as both a player and captain will become South Africa’s first time winning the World Cup trophy.
Proteas captain Temba Bavuma hopes that his first One Day International World Cup as both a player and captain will become South Africa’s first time winning the World Cup trophy.
It is not common that a player’s debut as captain at a World Cup is also his debut playing at such a big tournament. This is South Africa’s story, Temba Bavuma’s to be precise and the uniqueness of it.
The majority of the players in the current Proteas ODI squad have never been to an ODI World Cup. There’s only about six players in Quinton de Kock, Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, Tabraiz Shamsi, Rassie van der Dussen and Aiden Markram who have had a taste of it.
Bavuma is currently enjoying a good ODI form after scoring centuries against England and the West Indies earlier this year. Even in the year before, Bavuma made the Indians sweat at Boland Park in Paarl with a classy hundred.
WINNER – ODI PLAYER OF THE YEAR 🏆
Temba Bavuma's return home against England, the West Indies, and the Netherlands saw him rack up consistent scores to wrap up a glorious home summer.#CSAAwards2023 #SummerToCelebrate #BePartOfIt pic.twitter.com/E9eGSVqTuK
— Proteas Men (@ProteasMenCSA) July 7, 2023
This upcoming October when South Africa compete at the World Cup in India, Bavuma will rely on his form to guide him into having a successful tournament with the Proteas.
As captain, Bavuma hopes to become the first to bring the trophy to South Africa and he knows there’s no better opportunity than to do it this year.
“Everyone has their own story. We can mention Siya Kolisi, Graeme Smith, but the fact is that all those guys have a uniquely different story,” Bavuma said. “Mine is also different,” he continued.
“It hurts that as a team and a nation we’ve never won a World Cup. That is the one thing we always talk about as a team.
“I want to be the first captain to win a World Cup for South Africa. This is not related to being black or white, it is about being the first to do it.
“That is what I want to be remembered for. We will see come October-November if we are able to make this dream a reality.” Bavuma added.
While Temba Bavuma admits he wanted more match time before the World Cup, he is comfortable that at least 90% of a World Cup squad was clear in his mind.https://t.co/A7WmfCIj8I
— Sunday Times (@SundayTimesZA) July 9, 2023
On October eighth, South Africa will start their World Cup campaign against the Dutch, the same team that knocked them out of the T20 World Cup last year.
“We’re starting with the Netherlands in October and I know all the noise and all those T20 World Cup conversations will start again.” said Bavuma.
That is how the recently concluded camp in Durban comes into the picture, to discuss how to better handle the pressures that come with World Cups. As much as the camp was labelled as a skills-camp, the management also focused on building a team culture and a team identity.
It is in understanding themselves as a team and how they want to play that South Africa will find a better way to respond in high pressure situations and in World Cups as per Bavuma and the management.
To South Africa’s advantage, the Australian ODI team will make an exceptional opponent to practice on and to find their identity against when Australia tours South Africa next month.
“There’s still a lot of cricket we need to play, we have Australia first up and then we can start talking about the Netherlands’ World Cup game in October,” said Bavuma.
“At times when we’re playing in World Cups and in any games where there’s a lot of pressure, we tend to fail. When we talk about identity, we are trying to find something to lean on when we find ourselves in those situations, something that will act as a base of who we are as a team and in turn lead us to performing in those situations.
“This only became a topic when Rob Walter and Shukri Conrad took over, which was not a long time ago. Yes, we’ve been able to get a few positive results (against England, Windies and Netherlands), but it is still early to say we have figured it all out in terms of our team identity and style of play.
“With that said the World Cup is right around the corner and it is up to us as a team to get together, trust in each other’s abilities and play how we want to play.
“We want to play fearless cricket and if there’s any opportunity to take the game forward we want to do that bravely.” Bavuma concluded.
