Temba Bavuma: Less hundreds but plenty of resolve

Don’t judge a book by its cover. 

The cricketing equivalent of this age-old saying would be ‘don’t judge a player just by his numbers’. 

On the surface, Temba Bavuma’s record doesn’t instil much confidence. After 61 Tests, he only has three Test hundreds, with the third ton coming recently in the 60th Test. The average, at 37.3, isn’t inspiring either for a premier batter. 

If you haven’t seen him bat much, there is a good chance you would think how he has played these many Tests, let alone be South Africa’s captain. There are a few teams worldwide where a batter won’t survive for this long with these numbers. 

This is where Bavuma’s average should be put into perspective. He made his debut in the home Boxing Day Test in 2014, at a time when South Africa were undergoing a transition after the retirements of Jacques Kallis and Graeme Smith. Around two or three years later, the batting averages in Test cricket dropped worldwide — plummeting from 32.01 between 2014 and 2017 to 27.7 from 2018 to 2021. 

For most of Bavuma’s career, South Africa has been a deathbed for batting. Recently, during the first South Africa-Sri Lanka Test, Rassie van der Dussen tweeted, “South Africa is the toughest place to bat in Test cricket,” with little rebuttal from the fans on the social media platform. 

Since 2014, the batting average for the top six batters in South Africa has been 33.1, the third lowest among all Test-playing countries. Bavuma has played most of his games in South Africa and has averaged 42.8, around 10 runs per dismissal better than the benchmark. 

In away Tests involving Bavuma, the mean average for the top six batters (both South Africa and opposition batters combined) is 32.2. The 34-year-old falls half a run short of this mark with an away batting average of 31.7. 

Away numbers ain’t Bavuma’s strong suit. He averages 19 in four Tests in India and 23.3 in two Tests in Sri Lanka, with his last match in either of these countries coming in 2019. But the aforementioned average difference shows that Bavuma has been part of many low-scoring matches. 

From South Africa’s perspective, six Protea batters have scored over 1000 runs in the matches involving Bavuma, out of whom Bavuma’s average is the lowest. But it is still higher than the overall mean average for the top six batters.

In terms of hundreds, Bavuma has only three in 61 Tests, making him one of the only three specialist batters with three hundreds or less in their first 60 Tests played (minimum 2000 Test runs).

Also, until 2018, Bavuma batted 40 out of his 52 innings at number six or lower (76.9%), further reducing his chances of notching up tons, especially for a batter of his tempo. In the fourth Test between South Africa and Australia in 2018, Bavuma, batting at six, was left stranded at 95. 

2019 onwards, when he was promoted after the retirements of AB de Villiers and Hashim Amla, Bavuma batted 38 out of 51 innings at five or above (74.5%). 

Overall, Bavuma has two scores in the 90s, two in the 80s and seven in the 70s. The former England cricketer Geoffrey Boycott once said that a good Test batter should maintain a ratio of at least one Test hundred in every five Tests. For Bavuma, it has been about notching up a 70-plus score every fourth Test, which isn’t all that bad considering the low-scoring matches he has featured in. At the same time, it also holds true that one would expect more hundreds from a premier batter. 

Bavuma’s recent hundred came in South Africa’s 2-0 win over Sri Lanka, where he became the first skipper to score four 50-plus scores in a two-Test series. In this series, he was everything South Africa expected from him. With scores of 70, 113, 78 and 66, Bavuma scored 327 runs in the series, with no other batter crossing the 200-run mark. 

His 70 in Durban constituted nearly 37% of the hosts’ first innings total of 191. His ton in the second innings only piled on Sri Lanka’s misery after 42 all out but was an important knock for him. 

Both of Bavuma’s innings in Gqeberha had the final say in the game. 

Walking out to bat at 44/3, he absorbed the pressure by playing the aggressor in a 133-run stand with Ryan Rickelton. The right-hander had a 60-plus strike rate against all four Sri Lanka bowlers. In the second innings, he top-scored with 66, stabilizing the innings through vulnerable phases. None of these knocks were hundreds but defined the series win. 

The series could well be the starting point of Bavuma mending his underwhelming numbers as a Test batter. He has averaged 40-plus in each of the last four years but this is the first time he has dictated terms in this fashion. 

His average, 31.4 at the end of 2020, has been on an upward curve since and has reached 37.3 at present. If he can stretch it to 40-plus by the end of his career, it would be a respectable figure for a batter of his stature. However, he would like to add rapidly to his 100s count. The lowest number of hundreds for a specialist batter with a 40-plus average in over 60 Tests is Stephen Fleming (with nine tons in 111 matches) and Bavuma is quite far away from him too. 

As Bavuma said before the second Test against Sri Lanka, he has a couple of years left in him. It would be equally important for him to remain fit as he has missed one-third of South Africa’s Tests since 2022 — eight out of 24. 

Not to forget the glory in sight for the nation. South Africa began this summer with a legit hunt at the World Test Championship final. They are off to the perfect start, with their skipper playing a deciding role in the series win. They are just one win away from sealing that spot with a two-Test series against Pakistan as their next assignment. 

If Bavuma can lead South Africa to secure these two wins – one to qualify and then the other to clinch the final at Lord’s – his batting numbers won’t matter, as he will then reconstruct his legacy as the first Protea captain to lift an ICC trophy in senior men’s cricket, since the 1998 ICC Knock Out Trophy. He will be a national hero for a nation that has witnessed knockout heartbreaks in both white-ball formats in the last two years. Bavuma was the captain in both of those games as well. 

Temba Bavuma has a few big months coming that can undo the slow start and everything that went wrong in the first half of his career. 

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