Proteas no strangers to Indian conditions

Local journalists question Bavuma’s T20 credentials

● The good news is that all SA’s T20 players for the series starting in Dharamshala today have played in India.

Better news is that 10 have first-hand experience of trying to keep it together in the mayhem that is an Indian Premier League game or an international in that country.

Best news is that the other four are starting their careers at the highest level, and so keen to make their mark whatever it takes — and wherever chasing that goal takes them.

Bad news? Lance Klusener, SA’s batting coach for the series, was having none of that from the moment he sat down behind the microphones at a press conference in Dharamshala yesterday: “Good afternoon everybody. Welcome. Testing …”

Klusener surveyed a room crowded with 50 or so reporters. For a piddling T20? In one of India’s farthest flung venues, about 2,650km north of Bangalore?

“The biggest challenge in India is dealing with the conditions, and that’s not necessarily just the wicket,” Klusener said. “It’s the weather, amazingly full stadiums, wonderful, full press conferences … It’s a wonderful challenge.

“There’s a lot of things off the ball that you need to deal with. Once you can get your head around that it makes playing easier.”

Seconds passed emptily and Klusener, famously media-shy as a player, thought he was done: “Yes! Brilliant! I love you guys!”

But among the challenges in India is that reporters take time before asking questions.

When the next one came it was heavy with the implication. Temba Bavuma was a “red-ball specialist” who had a “defensive technique”. T20 was “not his natural game”.

Bavuma, who needs only a T20 cap to complete his green-and-gold collection, is the sturdy little fella who more often than not strides to the middle with SA’s Test team in trouble. And gets them out of it. He is a man for the trenches. But maybe not for the wrenches of T20?

“It’s easy to pigeonhole him and say he plays Test cricket,” Klusener said. “But Temba’s a wonderful all-round cricketer.

“Yes, he has to maybe learn a couple of options, which we’re trying to get our teeth into. But that, really, is it.

“He’s not the biggest guy — he can’t muscle the ball over the fence. But there’s different ways of doing it. It’s about us giving him that option.

“I’m uncomfortable just saying he’s a redball cricketer. He’s played two ODIs with a hundred and a fifty.”

Actually, Bavuma scored 113 and 48 in those games: against Bangladesh — in 2016, long before they became the terrier welterweights they were at this year’s World Cup — and Ireland.

But there was no derailing the Klusener Express: “He’s a good cricketer who just needs that opportunity. He’ll certainly get that opportunity on this tour, and I think he’s ready to make the transition into being somebody in the engine room who can be good at rotating the strike and have good plans.”

The spectacle of one of the most vicious punishers of a cricket ball the game has yet seen standing up for a player who spends most of his time at the crease apparently batting for a PhD was at once heart-warming and important.

On Friday, Bavuma cleared the decks of cricket talk to say: “We’re here trying to play for the people back home, but there are bigger issues affecting the nation. The whole issue with women abuse, the xenophobic attacks — it’s scary.

“Let’s look after each other. As the Proteas we are diverse but united, and we’d like the same thing back home.”

Give that man a cap.

There are bigger issues — women abuse, xenophobia Temba Bavuma SA cricketer touring India