South Africa captain Temba Bavuma stated on Sunday that his strategy is based on an unbreakable defense, which helped him on a crumbling Eden Gardens pitch where 38 wickets were taken in eight sessions.
The South African captain’s poise was evident as he guided his team to an incredible 30-run victory over India in the first Test after recovering from a five-month calf injury. Under his captaincy, this was South Africa’s tenth victory in eleven Test matches.
“Look, I’m a guy who always backs my defence. I think my game is that simple. I try to play around my defence,” said Bavuma who made a second innings 55 not out.
His 44-run partnership with Corbin Bosch for the eighth wicket proved to be game-changing, as it put India’s goal of 124 runs on a deteriorating pitch and increased their overall lead beyond 100.
“This morning, like I said, I thought it was a better wicket this morning. It would have been nice on our side if we had wickets. I think we would have been able to get more than just the 125-run lead.”
Even though the game was over in less than three days, Bavuma claimed that everybody visiting India was familiar with the circumstances.
He emphasized that the risk associated with strokeplay was not severe turn but rather an unpredictable bounce.
“Maybe from a spin point of view, you’d expect the way the wicket played, more from day three, day four onwards. But that being said, that’s what you can expect when you come to India,” he said.
“I don’t think I’ve ever played on a day five in India. Nor have I played day four. Unless they’ve scored 600. Nothing new from my previous experience,” he quipped.
The difficulty, he continued, was in having faith in the bounce, which varied greatly between spells.
“There weren’t demons…nothing that you wouldn’t expect. From a spin point of view, I felt that it was tricky. I find it a bit tricky to trust the bounce. Some balls were bouncing nicely. Others were squatting which made the cross-batted shots a bit harder.”
In response to the claim that South Africa had defeated India at their own game, Bavuma stated that the victory demonstrated maturity and preparedness.
“Yeah, it’s probably true. I think the wicket that was prepared is what I understand was asked on their side. We’ve come here knowing that the wickets are going to be spinner-friendly,” he said.
“It didn’t come as a surprise…for a lot of our younger guys, it’s an experience. As much as we’ve run, there are areas we can improve within our batting and a little bit within our seam bowling.”
He believed that on a pitch like this, where boundaries were hard to come by, strike rotation was essential.
“You’ve got to try and keep the scoreboard ticking. They had spread the field so there were singles on offer. I was able to capitalise on that.”
Bavuma also admitted that, in these circumstances, the sweep shot, which he frequently employed, was a deliberate choice rather than an automatic reaction.
“The sweep for me is pretty much premeditated.”
He said the team genuinely felt that even 125 was defendable, drawing confidence from how well they bowled in the first innings.
“We had the belief, disillusioned. It’s not every day you go and score 125 and you feel that’s a winning score. But we had to believe,” he said.
As India fell to 77/7, Axar Patel launched a brief counterattack with two sixes, but according to Bavuma, they were still aware that their left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj posed the greatest threat.
“Keshav was the attacking option there, with the right-hander, Kesh comes into the game but when the two lefties were batting, we tried to go with Aiden and Simon Harmer.”
He praised Player of the Match Harmer’s eight wickets and described his comeback as an important contribution to South Africa’s spin arsenal.
“The ball obviously comes at a higher trajectory. He has good control in terms of his pace. He’s able to put revs on it.”
“You’ll see in terms of the seam — he’s quite smart. Him coming back into the team has made our bowling attack even more formidable.”
“From a spin point of view, we relied heavily on Keshav. But Simon, as we saw today, he’s really upped our bowling resources,” he signed off.
