South Africa closed off a 3-2 T20I series win against West Indies, but the questions surrounding Temba Bavuma’s suitability for captaincy remain unanswered, writes Rohit Sankar.
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Even as South Africa bask in a commendable T20I series win over a full-strength, intimidating West Indies side, the form of over Temba Bavuma, recently ensconced as the Proteas’ white-ball skipper, will be a concern. Inexperienced in the format – his T20I match count crossed double digits in this series – Bavuma finished the T20I series with scores of 22, 46, 1, 7 and 0, a total of 76 runs at an average of 15.20 and strike-rate of 108.57.
Bavuma’s appointment as limited-overs skipper came as a surprise, but there was logic behind it. The first black South African captain, Bavuma had done the hard yards at Lions, his franchise, with success under his belt and trophies won. As South Africa’s search for a global title continues, the decision to make Bavuma captain ahead of a series of ICC events should allow for the Proteas to properly build for the future, backing one leader to see them through.
However, it’s hard to avoid the feeling that Bavuma fits the job in one format far more than in the other. While his experience in both before taking over was limited, in ODIs he averaged 55 from six games when taking up the job, with his favoured method of strike rotation and steady accumulation still valuable. He has since added a second score in the 90s, against Pakistan, to go with a century on debut. If the Proteas see him as the future middle-order fulcrum around whom they could build a side competent enough to win the big titles, then that’s fair enough.
In T20 cricket, it’s less clear that he’s in South Africa’s best XI. His first test at a major event will come at the T20 World Cup set to be held in October, seven months after his appointment. This series against West Indies was South Africa’s first under Bavuma and it threw up a series of questions even if they went on to script a memorable series win.
What is Bavuma’s role in the T20I line-up?
It’s a question that South Africa would have asked themselves before making him the captain. Was he seen as the batter capable of tackling spin, his strength, in the middle overs in the sub-continent? Would he open the innings with Quinton de Kock, a slot that remains pretty much vacant even at the end of the West Indies series?
What’s clear after the series is that South Africa are unclear about Bavuma’s role and it’s a question that needs answers soon. Bavuma has opened in seven of the 13 T20Is he has played, and donned the role with fairly impressive results in the T20Is against England last year.
But, here in the Caribbean, he started off at No.3, a smart move considering his value in the T20 World Cup would come in handling spinners, a problem for most of South Africa’s middle order. However, in the series decider, Bavuma went back up the order to open the batting and made a duck.
The decision belies their needs, and it also raises the question about why Aiden Markram, a natural opener, wasn’t asked to do the job.
If Bavuma is to bat in the middle order, another conundrum they have is his strike-rate. The diminutive Lions batsman isn’t a power hitter or a frequent boundary hitter. This puts him into the anchor category, but his scoring rate of 114.26 from No.3, which is the lowest he has batted in T20Is, is too low. If he opens, he can take advantage of the powerplay overs, but then South Africa would not be using his best skill – tackling spin in the middle overs, a role that’s very much open for them in the limited-overs sides.
He may not have time to upskill in this short span of time, but South Africa will need to define Bavuma’s role quickly and stick with it, if they are to have a good T20 World Cup.
Early captaincy days, but too many quirky moves
It’s still early days, but the five-match T20I series saw quite a few decisions from Bavuma that were hard to understand. For one, they started off the series without Markram in the XI despite his hat-trick of fifties in South Africa’s previous T20I series against Pakistan.
When he was brought in, South Africa seemed overtly desperate to make him an all-rounder, giving him the new ball in one game with disastrous results. In the third T20I, he was brought back into the attack, after an over with the new ball, in the 10th over against two spin hitters – Jason Holder and Shimron Hetmyer – and promptly conceded two sixes in three balls.
The match-up plots often looked bizarre. In the first T20I, Reeza Hendricks was handed the ball with Chris Gayle and Evin Lewis at the crease and he conceded 21 runs in the over.
South Africa switched between George Linde, Markram and Bjorn Fortuin in the first over against West Indies’ left-right opening pair and they conceded far too many more runs than South Africa would have liked. Even as the pacers found success early on, the decision to start with spin, especially when at least one of the batters had a favourable match-up, often painted the picture that South Africa were rigid in their plans.
Bavuma has struggled as T20 skipper before. Jozi Stars were the champions of the inaugural Mzansi Super League, but in their second campaign, Bavuma was made captain and the franchise went winless.
Clearly Bavuma has plenty to learn in both departments. Whether the improvements come quickly enough for South Africa to threaten at the T20 World Cup is another question.
