Allow me to take you down my memory lane, to a time where Bavuma revealed to me who he really is, how he looks at challenges and why he chose to play T20 cricket in the first place. | umbhali ✍️ @imongamagcwabe

It’s 23:50 on a Monday night, I’m sitting on my bed thinking about the T20I side, replaying the first two games of the India series in my head and I can’t help but feel sad.

More than the losses, it’s the concerning reactions and opinions of the fans about our national captain, Temba Bavuma, that got me in my feelings. 

Two hours ago, I had a thirty-minute long chat with a radio host and friend of mine about an interview he wanted us to do and he wanted us to talk about Temba. It is during this call that I remembered that I had a part of my 2020 interview with Temba  (that I never shared) that best explains the character that he has. And with this piece, I bring you Temba Bavuma, with no filter. 

Thanks to the amazing Sipokazi Sokanyile for tolerating my impatient and naive self, I got an interview with Bavuma on the fifth of December 2020.

The interview lasted over 80 minutes and it’s the last two talking points of that interview that I want to bring forth to you today. 

Can Temba play whiteball cricket?

I always try and look for clues about a player’s mentality and where they’re at at a particular time by paying close attention to their body language. 

During the 2019 Mzansi Super League, right after the embarrassing Test series in India where Faf’s men got a beating of note, I payed attention to the players who were on that tour. I was keen to see how they were going to respond now that they’re back home playing in a different tournament and having had a week or two off after arriving in SA from the 3-0 Test series defeat at the hands of the Virat Kohli-led Indian Test team. 

Temba was drafted by the Jozi Stars as skipper. It was a fresh start, which he needed, having had a mediocre stint playing for the Durban Heat in 2018. The Jozi Stars were the defending champions and Bavuma had the privilege to lead the side.

Although the Jozi Stars didn’t even make the playoffs, I kept a close eye on Bavuma. 

He had a different feel about him. Though he looked his usual calm self, he was more cheerful and looked in complete contentment with himself and his game.

In the middle, with bat in hand, he looked a completely different Temba. There was no trace of uncertainty in his shot selections, he would dance down the wicket to a steaming Anrich Nortje at the Bullring and would easily smack him for a boundary in the cow-corner region. 

I have to be honest, I wasn’t expecting that response from him post the India series. He was consistently blamed for the losses of that tour and had all the axes drawn for his head. But Temba had one more card up his sleeve. The focus was on T20 cricket. He was determined to showcase his improved game plan in T20 cricket. 

“Kudala ndazethemba. I always knew I can play whiteball cricket. Andizange ndiyiginye into eyayithethwa ngabantu ukuba I’m only a one format player,” Bavuma told Cricket Fanatics Magazine. 

“It was three years ago (2017/2018 season) when I decided to prove that wrong. I mean, I went to the Africa T20 Cup and that was all with the impression to refine iGame yam.

Andizange nditshintshe nto from a technical point of view. From the time I played for South Africa in 2014, I never had an opportunity to play i’whiteball cricket (domestically) because it used to clash with the Test series and as we all know i’Test series ziyatsala. 

“So I just kind of lost iTempo and that feeling of playing i’whiteball cricket. So I went back ndayodlala pha kwi semi-pro cricket, from there ndayodlala kwi Lions nakwi MSL, I just felt la rhythm nala awareness of playing whiteball cricket, it came back.

“Mna I always believed that I could play whiteball cricket, I always felt I was suited for it and I enjoy my fielding too and whiteball cricket allows for all of that. And again, Enoch was quite pivotal and you could say he was instrumental in kind of unlocking my potential and gave me a platform to express myself and kind of find myself.”

Temba finished that 2019 edition of the MSL with 262 runs in six innings and with a strike-rate of 134.88.

His strike-rate in that competition was higher than that of Faf du Plessis, Liam Livingstone and David Miller. He finished fifth in the top run-scorers list with fewer innings than most of the batters on that list.

Did you adopt a new approach to your batting during the 2019 MSL?

“I certainly felt umahluko nam from that India tour in terms of i’mindset yam. Unyanisile in terms of being more aggressive, being more confrontational in big moments of the game. Those guys (India Test side) are so good kwi conditions zabo so much that if you let them dictate igame kuwe, usengxakini. You’re always going to be playing catch up. So it was almost like keeping that in mind and I guess the way that I played was a reflection of that and it was a product of that mindset shift yokuba I’m going to take the game to you type of thing. 

“I must also confess ukuba… la disappointment of indlela esadlala ngayo e’India, that was still on me. It was almost as if ndandidlala phantsi kwala msindo type of thing. I think probably the biggest challenge for me is to keep la energy and that intensity. That’s probably the biggest challenge for me. Like how do I keep playing phantsi kwala msindo type of thing. ‘Umsindo’ might not be the right word, but I think niyandiva ba ndizama ukuthini.”

Listening to the interview once again moved me so much that I decided to put this piece together.

In our last point of the interview, I asked him for an advice to the young players on the come up from domestic cricket down to school boy cricket.

In fact, I asked him what advice would he give to a 19/20 year-old Temba Bavuma if he could. I never thought that the advice he gave would somehow be fitting for him at this point in his career.

Actually, that advice seems more fitting for him at this point of his career than it would have to a 20-year-old Bavuma. 

“I think the first thing I would say is to stay yourself. Along the way you’re going to meet a lot of people. People who will try influence you positively, people who’ll try influence you in a right way but it’s important kuyo yonke into oyenzayo to still stay yourself. I feel that by staying true to yourself, that gives you the best opportunity to overcome the challenges that you will face along the way. Don’t think that lendlela ozoyihamba i’straight. It’s a tough one. Yindlela enameva if I could say. As long as you stay true to yourself and uyazi into oyifunayo, I think for me that’s the biggest thing. 

“I mean usakhula it’s all about i’cricket. It was never about anything else but i’cricket. But the older you get i’perspective and i’dynamic iyatshintsha. It’s easy to allow yourself to change into all of that. But if you stick to who you truly are, it makes things easier.”

There’s no denying the facts. Bavuma has scored two ducks in a row. One off 4 deliveries and another off 7. Embarrassing for a skipper, right? He also went unsold in the SA20 auction, that was a low point in his career. These are all points we can not deny. 

His last words in our interview, though they’d rather be chilling if they were to come as an advice from someone else to him at this point in his career, quite frankly and evidently, it is an advice the vast minority (and yes, I mean MINORITY) of South Africans would give the national whiteball captain before the third match starts in a couple of hours or so.  

“Another advice i would give is that we’re not all going to make it. It’s impossible. So, accept that. But also give everything that you can to what it is that you want to do, whatever it is, give it everything that you can,” he concluded. 

Writer’s Note:

Partially written in IsiXhosa for the isiXhosa followers of CFM. Proudly!