Won’t take emotional decisions on future as skipper: Bavuma
South Africa skipper Temba Bavuma will wait till after the dust has settled from a dismal World Cup campaign to assess his choices in order to avoid being pressured into making an “emotional” decision on his future as T20I captain.
The Netherlands staged a massive upset in the ongoing T20 World Cup at the Adelaide Oval on Sunday after defeating South Africa by 13 runs in their last Super-12 encounter, ensuring India a place in the semi-finals.
“It’s been a tricky time. To be considering that now, a lot of it will be emotional, in terms of my role as captain within the team. It’s something I will think about. I will speak to the relevant people. We have to see who comes in as a coach. Generally, when you have changes like that, they might come in with a different style. They might find a different leader to execute whatever vision or style of play they have. It will be emotional now if I think about all of that,” ESPNcricinfo quoted Bavuma as saying.
Bavuma’s leadership has long been praised as exemplary, but his prowess as a T20 player has received a lot of criticism. He took over as skipper and kept the team together after opener Quinton de Kock missed a crucial game at last year’s tournament due to a board directive to take a knee. With 635 T20I runs under his belt, Bavuma has a strike rate of 116.08 and an average of 22.67.
“Mentally, it does eat at you as a player. You try to manage your mental space as much as you can. You try to control what gets to you but with social media, whatever is being said out there always gets to you. I always try to keep a level head, through all the good and the bad times. I try to be as close to myself as possible. Not just for myself but for this group. We are going to take a lot of flack as a group and rightly so,” Bavuma said.
Bavuma knew his decision to bowl first on a surface where chasing always seemed difficult would draw criticism, but he felt his attack had enough strength to support it.
“When you make a decision like that, you expect us to put them under pressure with the ball. We didn’t do that. We still had the responsibility with the bat and we just couldn’t get any type of momentum or flow to our innings. We couldn’t adapt to the slow nature of the wicket. You can pick at a lot of things. It’s disappointing for all of us,” Bavuma said.