Africa-Press – South-Africa. At the Wanderers
At the end of January, Temba Bavuma endured a torrid net session ahead of the ODI series against England in Bloemfontein.
He went and sat on the grass embankment with Shukri Conrad, the Proteas’s red-ball coach deputising in the 50-over format at that stage, and had a deep chat for 90 minutes.
Two days later, he scored his third ODI hundred.
Last week, Bavuma experienced the ignominy of becoming the fourth player in history to make a pair on his Test captaincy debut.
Again, he had a conversation with Conrad and, again, it delivered a century, this time a career-best, unbeaten 171 that put South Africa on the brink of clean-sweep over the West Indies.
The correlation is becoming clear: the two men are clearly gelling as a combination.
The Proteas don’t need reminding about the bountiful benefits of that.
They had it in Hansie Cronje and Bob Woolmer as well as Graeme Smith and Mickey Arthur.
World cricket has provided ample evidence too: Gary Kirsten and MS Dhoni for India; Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower for England; John Buchanan and Ricky Ponting for Australia.
“I’m not here to make any comparisons with Shukri and other coaches, but the synergy seems to be there,” said Bavuma.
“I’m learning a lot about the language he speaks and also the challenging conversations that we’ve had.”
Conrad himself had revealed in the build-up to the ongoing second Test that there was no need to have a “special” conversation with his team leader despite the events at SuperSport Park.
Yet, as Bavuma subsequently confirmed, there was a stern one.
“Before the game, we sat again and he asked me some really tough questions,” he said.
“One of them was just because I’m captain, why can’t I still score two ducks? It’s those type of things were discussed, how to find a way to deal with it and move forward.”
Most importantly, however, Bavuma feels unequivocally backed by team management, a dynamic he admits he last experienced back in 2018/19 when Enoch Nkwe, Cricket South Africa’s director of cricket, had him as Lions skipper in a season where three trophies were won at the Bullring.
“I definitely feel fully backed. I haven’t had this feeling for a while. In fact, the last time I probably was in such a position with Enoch in franchise cricket. At the moment, things are going well with the coach and the team. We’ll try to keep riding on that.”
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