While watching the Ashes action in Perth on Friday morning, a “jealous” Temba Bavuma questioned why South Africa, the current World Champions in the conventional format, only got a two-Test series against India.
The short series, according to Bavuma, who guided South Africa to the WTC title earlier this year, does little respect to the match between two of the best red-ball teams in the world of cricket.
“We woke up this morning to watch the Ashes. We watched with a bit of jealousy, knowing that they were playing five Tests. They’ll be going at each other,” Bavuma remarked, obviously unimpressed that a winning team would play a short series.
“Hopefully, not too far in the future, but more in the near future, we’ll go back to play four Tests against India.”
The South African captain is aware that players have very little influence over the “mapping of schedules” because he has been in the business long enough. A cricket nation’s financial stability is directly correlated with the amount of Test matches in a series.
Because of their commercial viability, the Ashes, the Border-Gavaskar Trophy (India vs Australia), and the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy (India vs England) are all five-match series.
However, India typically plays two-Test series against all other countries, including Bangladesh, New Zealand, South Africa, and the West Indies.
“Players are not involved when it comes to mapping out the schedule. I think every of our players who have had the opportunity to interact with the media, have had that question in front of them. They have voiced out their frustration,” the Proteas skipper said.
The likelihood of a drawn series is significantly higher than the outcome that a three-game series can produce, which makes a two-Test series less interesting.
“Look, however way the series goes, 1-1, 2-0, it would be nice for a three-Test series against a formidable team like India. And it’s just good for the fans, really, when people get to see good cricket, one team dominating, another team dominating. But there also being an opportunity for one team to come out as victors,” he said, explaining the rationale behind a minimum three-game series.
However, South Africa’s inspired captain wants to keep up the excellent job on the pitch and force the stakeholders to treat them fairly.
“Like I’ve already said, as players, all we can do is what we’ve been trying to do out on the field, keep playing good cricket. That will attract the top nations and other nations to play a lot more cricket.”
