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Ashfak Mohamed

Temba Bavuma is the elected Proteas T20 captain and should have the support of everyone leading into the T20 World Cup.

TEMBA Bavuma has had a lot to take in recently.

The Proteas captain had a miserable three-match series in India which came just after he was snubbed at the SA20 auction in Cape Town recently.

Bavuma hadn’t played a lot of cricket either since his last match on June 17 against India in Rajkot when he was ruled out with a fractured elbow, which kept him sidelined for nearly three months.

It forced Bavuma to miss out on the much-hyped England tour and he only returned to action in September in a pre-season T20 tournament in Namibia, where he played for his franchise, the Lions.

He produced scores of 23, 56, 9 and 15 against a Namibian XI and Lahore Qalandars, where he batted at No 3 in three matches and opened the batting in the other.

Three weeks later, he found himself in India.

It is for this reason that I think he needs to be cut some slack. In his last 11 T20I innings before the India series, Bavuma had scores of 13, 0, 72, 12, 2, 46, 31 not out, 10, 35, 8 and 8 not out. That’s not earth-shattering figures, but not exactly terrible either.

And, of course, strike-rate is king in T20 cricket, and Bavuma’s mark of 116.49 needs to be considerably better going forward.

But at this stage, he is the appointed captain for the T20 World Cup, with selection chief Victor Mpitsang and coach Mark Boucher of the opinion that he can do a job in Australia.

The social-media warriors may be calling for Bavuma to be dropped in the belief that the likes of Reeza Hendricks – who was excellent against England – Rilee Rossouw and Quinton de Kock should make up the top three in the Proteas batting order.

But before his brilliant 100 not out off 48 balls (7x4, 8x6) in Indore, Rossouw had not been convincing since his return to the Proteas side.

IMAGE: AFP

The left-hander produced scores of 4, 96 not out, 31, 0 and 0 before his maiden T20I century, so he is not a guaranteed selection in Australia either. Will his free swinging style be successful on those tracks?

For me, the selection quandary for the World Cup is between Hendricks and Rossouw in the top three, with Bavuma being backed as the captain…

IMAGE: AFP