Proteas head coach Rob Walter gives an update on the availability of Temba Bavuma for the semi-final against Australia and reiterates the reasons that he has stuck with his selection.
There has been chatter amongst fans and the media surrounding Temba Bavuma’s availability for the World Cup semi-final against Australia.
The Proteas skipper struggled with discomfort in the hamstring region during the final match of the group stages and struggled to sprint in the field and during his batting innings.
Walter gave an update on his progress.
“Yesterday was positive, he was doing a fair bit of training in different manners. Today [Tuesday] we will see in training, we just taking it daily. We’ve seen a progression positively each day which is awesome. We just ticking off each day as it comes.”
Despite the injury concerns, the conversation has been pretty negative online towards our captain. Many want to see him dropped based on his performance with the bat in this tournament and replaced with Reeza Hendricks.
Hendricks is a capable replacement who managed to score 85 in the tournament when he came in as a replacement for Bavuma against England. He had a second chance to impress against Bangladesh and only managed 12.
Bavuma has since come in and has started off his innings pretty well, but failed to kick on and score the milestones expected of him.
Walter has not ruled out the possibility of dropping the Proteas captain and made the reasons clear as to why he has stuck with Bavuma in his starting XIs.
“Temba hasn’t come into the conversation of being dropped, because he has been one of our best batters for an entire year,” said Walter.
“From my point of view, yes he hasn’t scored the amount of runs he has wanted to in the World Cup, but every training he looks like he’s close and every game he looks like he’s close, so from that point of view, a good score is just around the corner for him.
“But as far as being undroppable, no one is bigger than the team at the end of the day. The same goes for everyone.”
