“Temba struggled on the tour, there’s no doubt” – Mark Boucher

Having scored a combined strike rate of just 103.39 in the recent T20I tour against India, Proteas coach Mark Boucher had admitted that skipper Temba Bavuma “struggled” to get going, but that he only battled against opening bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar.

Over the four matches, Bavuma scored 10, 35, 8 and 8 respectively, averaging just 15.25, and although Boucher had shed some light on Bavuma’s shortcomings as an opener, particularly in this format, he had contextualised it in line with the conditions as well.

“Temba struggled on the tour, there’s no doubt,” Boucher said. “But as coaches, we sit down and ask, ‘why did he struggle?’

“First of all, he only struggled against one bowler, and that was Kumar. Most of the guys struggled against him, so let’s give him credit where it is due.

“I think Kumar is a fantastic bowler, especially in those conditions. There were times when the ball was swinging a lot, which made him very dangerous.

“The ball was also up and down quite a bit, especially with the new ball,” he said, noting that as coaches they turned their focus to how they could be resistive to that threat, while continuing to develop and gain “more options”.

Speaking more of his captain, Boucher said it was always going to be challenging for Bavuma to adapt his game in-between the interchanging timeline and schedules that had been imposed upon him.

“We’ve spoken about it. It is quite difficult for him to change up during a series where you basically travel, play, travel, play.

“He hasn’t played a lot of cricket as well, so to come into a T20 series, open the batting and needing to get on with it from the get-go; it was always going to be tough for him, especially against Kumar. Against the other bowlers, his strike rates were fine.”

Boucher admitted that there were “no major concerns from my side” regarding the 32-year-old’s form, but that Bavuma, himself, would know if he needed to or wanted to improve on his game.

Instead, Boucher said Bavuma plays somewhat of a stabiliser role within the team.

“We’ve seen him in that mould. His stats outside the Power Play are very good. He’s got his way and means of playing the game and he picks up boundaries in different ways to, say, how Rassie van der Dussen and Aiden Markram would.

“It was just one little period of play and against one particular bowler that we need to work on. We’ve got a plan with regards to that.

“Temba loves being challenged. We’ve challenged him in the Test match arena and look how he’s come through. I’ve got no doubt that he’ll come through – he’s a tough cricketer and captain and certainly someone we need in our team.”

Having touched on styles of play, abilities to hit boundaries and stats, Boucher delved into the matter of obtaining the ideal strike rate, which ties in strongly with Bavuma’s obstacles of facing opening bowlers at the start of an innings.

“We have had conversations about the first 10 balls that you face,” Boucher said. “What’s your goal for facing 10 balls? Is it 10 off 10 or 14 off 10? Straight away, it’s one extra boundary and 14 off 10 is going at a [strike rate] of 140.00.

“So the margins aren’t always as big as people think they are. It’s maybe just another scoring option.
“I think it’s about giving players all the options they need – we did it last year with regards to scoring all around the wickets. You would’ve seen reverse sweeps come in, guys who’d never lapped before would do so, and the reverse lap as well.

“So I think if you give batters one or two more options just to take their strike rates a little higher. It’s [about] challenging players and pushing them to become the best in the world. I think it’s very necessary for a player to buy into that as well.”