Temba Bavuma is well aware of what his team is required to do and echoed that the team also know what they need to do in this crucial series. | ✍️ Naeemah Benjamin
Much of the talk has been around how South Africa is in danger of not automatically qualifying for the ICC ODI World Cup which takes place later in the year, as they lag behind the automatically qualifying eight teams on the log.
One thing that is evident to see (or hear) thus far is that there seems to be a clear plan on the way forward and both the white-ball and red-ball coaches seem to be aligned on what their strategies are. They have placed importance on creating an identity for their respective sides.
The one-day side, in particular, lacked a clear plan for the viewer so it’s refreshing to hear the coach and skipper speak about the “positive” approach that the Proteas are looking to inherit. Change is tough as Bavuma said and results won’t always show immediately.
The new chapter SA are undertaking will require patience and most likely failures will happen, as they try to navigate their way to figuring out how to adapt to the more attacking style of play.
Just like the interim coach for this series, Shukri Conrad, the skipper too spoke of the importance of identity and figuring out the brand of cricket they want to play going forward. He reiterated that this series is a good opportunity for them to clear up certain things with their playing style while keeping the objective to win in mind.
“We obviously know where we stand in terms of how many points, or how many games we need to win from the remaining number of games and obviously like every other game we always go out to win, we prepare to win.
“I think we’d like to shift our focus a little but you know going up to the World Cup, there’s an opportunity for us to really clear up our identity in how we’d like to play and we’d like to use these games as an opportunity to do that.
“Things will kind of unravel themselves as time goes, it’s very hard for me to articulate it all but I think it’s things that have been spoken about in terms of wanting to be a lot more positive, wanting to be a lot braver and always looking to take that option. I guess for us it’d be about doing that a lot more, doing that consistently and having the results back that up.”
The skipper dwelled on the fact that this series is the best opportunity for the side to get tested against a well-oiled unit like England.
“It’ll be big for us, big for our confidence as a team in terms of momentum going forward.
“There’s no better opportunity for us to test our skills and test our (I guess) new way of wanting to do things.
“It’s not exactly clear for us at the moment but we have an opportunity in this series to put all of that under pressure.”
Play between South Africa and England for the first ODI at the Mangaung Oval will begin at 13:30.
South Africa squad: Temba Bavuma (c), Quinton de Kock, Reeza Hendricks, Marco Jansen, Heinrich Klaasen, Sisanda Magala, Keshav Maharaj, Janneman Malan, Aiden Markram, David Miller, Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortje, Wayne Parnell, Kagiso Rabada, Tabraiz Shamsi, Rassie van der Dussen.
England squad: Jos Buttler (c), Moeen Ali, Jofra Archer, Harry Brook, Sam Curran, Ben Duckett, Dawid Malan. Adil Rashid, Jason Roy, Phil Salt, Olly Stone, Reece Topley, David Willey, Chris Woakes.
Watch the full press conference below:
Tune in for our Preview of the match:
