Why Temba Bavuma was chosen as captain by Cricket South Africa all those seasons ago

When the World Test Championship came into the FTP in 2019, Enoch Nkwe was at the helm of South Africa team as its team director. He was then demoted as an assistant coach unceremoniously before he quit the post for good. In 2022, he returned as director of cricket overseeing a significant transition in white-ball and red-ball cricket with split coaches.
The 42-year-old, gleeful after the Proteas won the WTC beating the mighty Australia, speaks to The Indian Express about the road that South Africa took to become new WTC champions and why Temba Bavuma was chosen as captain. 'It's not the colour, it's the character,' he explains.
Excerpts
Definitely this is very powerful. This is impactful. We have seen what CSA has done and the impact that he has had as a leader. In the cricketing space, he is now taking the belief to a new level among the kids in the township, who never believed that they can actually play cricket, become batsmen and also captain the country and lead them to becoming world champions. Now all the young kids and especially the ones in disadvantaged areas will get that belief. Even generally the young kids of today, they are going to start looking at this whole thing with a different lens because they can believe that it doesn't matter which background you come from, you have the opportunity and you can do it. It is what Temba has done. He has restored so much faith and belief in the individuals and it just goes to show it is not about colour. It is about the character. You put the right person with the right character in a position to lead the people and inspire the nation, and that is the result you get. He has been great at that. He's been fantastic at that. He did it and continues to do it for Proteas cricket.
Q. What made you go with him as a captain? What pulled you towards him?
The one thing about Temba is, he has always been a team man. He goes about his business very quietly and always puts the team first. And having worked with him before when I was a coach and also how he has blended well with Shukri I just knew it's gonna work. It's one of those you know… The strong chemistry and the dynamics were good between the two. Shukri has been very supportive of him as well. He has been fantastic through thick and thin. As a team we went through lot of challenges in 2020, 2021 and 2022. He was always the man who came forward and protected the team. He would rather take the punches for the team than letting the team take the punches. He got a lot of criticism and but for me, he stood firm and that's a sign of a great leader. It was just a matter of time he got rewarded in terms of the work that he's put behind all those years and show them the way through the struggles and all the challenges.
Q: Winning the WTC has been your target since 2019. After different roles, you have achieved the target. How did you get here?
We had a vision then and our thing was always looking at the WTC and the 2023 World Cup and how we need to put a strategy in place to try and win those two majors. Unfortunately, things obviously changed a little bit in between. My roles changed, but the blueprint remained the same. When I came back, it was all about how to take it forward by bringing in some new ideas. We had the WTC 2025 and the 2027 World Cup which we are hosting. When I took the role in 2022, we re-strategized by splitting the coaching role with an eye on 2023 World Cup and the 2025 WTC. We needed different strategy and the ones who we brought ended up producing the best performance by any South African team in the 2023 World Cup and the WTC. In successive white-ball World Cups we saw the team heading in the right direction and in red ball cricket, we had quite a nice generation of players coming through and Shukri Conrad (head coach) did great work. Obviously after the New Zealand tour there was a lot of criticism because we sent a C team for the tour. After that tour, Shukri and myself did re-strategize to find a way to reach the final. And here we are winning 8 of the remaining Tests. From my conversation with Shukri, I felt quite confident we could go all the way, because he had the plans in place.
Q: It was also the time you were playing mostly two-match Test series and were losing some of the talents. How concerning was that?
Test cricket has remained our one priority and we wanted to make sure that the best players were available for selection for each of those matches. Playing two-match series was a concern, but we knew it the moment the FTP came out. We wanted to maximise it and at the same time the SA20 was also important for us and outside of Test cricket, we played India A and West Indies A which helped us bridge the gap and make sure it keeps going forward. Shukri also ensured that he kept driving the belief in the Test team and within the individuals. I believe that was extraordinary because we had batsmen making huge scores in the journey. The character of the team was the biggest thing for me. It was powerful… even with the ball, we had a complete team performance where everyone bought into the plan and found ways to win games. It was evident right through. By the time we played Sri Lanka and Pakistan at home, the confidence was high.
Q: Also does playing just two-match series in the new cycle help you retain the best talents? You don't have much Test cricket, so they can play the T20 leagues around as well?
We signed off the FTP in 2022 so we knew the next four years this is what it looks like. For us, it was like how do we make this work. We know that from one cycle of the WTC to the next cycle there's an amount of games we are having and we're going to make do with it and see how we best manage our players. In this situation I guess it might help, we don't know. It might help because there's so much cricket being played, but we want to try and obviously better the Test cricket content in the next cycle after 2027 so that we play more Tests. Hence we're negotiating to improve the tally in the next cycle. But we have got 14 Tests and we are going to do our best to try and win as many as possible and be in the finals again and retain the championship.
Q: Will the planned Test match fund help Cricket South Africa?
From our point of view, there are always talks of how do we improve our Test cricket and bring in more three or four-match Test series. That should be great for global cricket as well because more the Test cricket, the better the sport is. It is a spin off because the best T20 cricketers in the last 15 years have all been great at Test cricket as well. If it is stronger, cricket is stronger across formats. We saw it at Lord's, how much people love it. It was exciting and that's what we want. Yes, the WTC format can be improved, and I don't know what structure it can be, but there are definite encouraging signs to build on. I'm hoping that you know there will be even a much more improved structure, come the next cycle and we can even play more Test cricket.
Q: Making Temba Bavuma the captain wasn't a popular choice when CSA made the appointment. With the WTC win, he has left an undeniable footprint in South Africa's history. How much does it mean to the Black community?
Definitely this is very powerful. This is impactful. We have seen what CSA has done and the impact that he has had as a leader. In the cricketing space, he is now taking the belief to a new level among the kids in the township, who never believed that they can actually play cricket, become batsmen and also captain the country and lead them to becoming world champions. Now all the young kids and especially the ones in disadvantaged areas will get that belief. Even generally the young kids of today, they are going to start looking at this whole thing with a different lens because they can believe that it doesn't matter which background you come from, you have the opportunity and you can do it. It is what Temba has done. He has restored so much faith and belief in the individuals and it just goes to show it is not about colour. It is about the character. You put the right person with the right character in a position to lead the people and inspire the nation, and that is the result you get. He has been great at that. He's been fantastic at that. He did it and continues to do it for Proteas cricket.
Q What made you go with him as a captain? What pulled you towards him?
The one thing about Temba is, he has always been a team man. He goes about his business very quietly and always puts the team first. And having worked with him before when I was a coach and also how he has blended well with Shukri I just knew it's gonna work. It's one of those you know… The strong chemistry and the dynamics were good between the two. Shukri has been very supportive of him as well. He has been fantastic through thick and thin. As a team we went through lot of challenges in 2020, 2021 and 2022. He was always the man who came forward and protected the team. He would rather take the punches for the team than letting the team take the punches. He got a lot of criticism and but for me, he stood firm and that's a sign of a great leader. It was just a matter of time he got rewarded in terms of the work that he's put behind all those years and show them the way through the struggles and all the challenges.
Q: We saw Heinrich Klaasen announce his retirement recently with a home World Cup just two years away. At their high point, we see good talents suddenly exiting the scene by ignoring central contracts. How concerning is this?
It's always going to be disappointing when players of such caliber leave the national team or not sign the national contract. We are always open to try and accommodate. Some of them are happy to just be freelancers but be available for the national team. Some of them retire completely from the game. But one thing we're doing now is the next best talent that we keep finding from our school system and inter-provincial system — which we are quite blessed with — we need to prepare them to transition up. So we are building a stronger feeder system, where even if an international player moves on, there is another player who is ready to step up. That's been our focus in the last three years because we did expect certain players at certain times to be leaving the national team or becoming freelancers. That's the reality of the new world. Since we are blessed with good talents which are coming through, we need to nurture them and empower them to make sure they are ready for Proteas.

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