Ross Roche

By Ross Roche

Senior sports writer


Bavuma defends Proteas’ route to World Test Champs final – ‘It wasn’t easy’

The Proteas will take on Australia, India or Sri Lanka in the match at Lord's.


Having secured their place in the World Test Championship (WTC) final to be battled out at Lord’s in London in June, the Proteas have come in for some stinging criticism from fans and pundits around the world of cricket.

By the end of their final match of the cycle, the second Test against Pakistan at Newlands, that starts on Friday morning, they will only have played 12 matches, while teams like England (22), India (19) and Australia (19) will have played considerably more.

Australia are the current front runners to qualify for the final, to take on the Proteas, needing just one win from their last three games to make it to the showpiece event, while India and Sri Lanka both need results to go their way to make it in.

England (sixth place on the table) are unable to qualify despite having picked up the most wins so far with 11, due to the complicated qualification structure that tries to level the playing field by prioritising percentage based off wins and draws.

This is due to other teams not playing as much as the “big three” of Australia, India and England, and thus the Proteas, with seven wins so far, qualify ahead of Australia (10 wins so far), India (nine wins so far) and England.

Opposition

The quality of opposition that the Proteas have faced has also come under scrutiny, with them only having played one of the big three, India, in a two-Test series, which they drew one-all, but that again is due to the big three monopolising themselves by always playing each other in five-Test series.

The other opposition the Proteas have faced are New Zealand, who they lost two-nil to after sending a C team to New Zealand early last year due to the series taking place during the second season of the SA20, West Indies, won one-nil after drawing the opener, Bangladesh, won two-nil, and Sri Lanka, won two-nil.

Critics

Two of the biggest critics of the Proteas making the WTC final so far have been former England captain and current pundit Michael Vaughn and former Australian player and coach Darren Lehmann, while South Africa-born former England international Kevin Petersen has defended them.

Proteas captain Temba Bavuma also fiercely defended his side, explaining that it wasn’t an easy draw for them to qualify, especially after sending a weakened side to New Zealand, while they won series in the Caribbean and on the sub-continent.

“I definitely don’t believe it was an easy ride to get to this point. We played against New Zealand with a not-so-strong team, and from then onwards, we’ve pretty much won all our games,” said Bavuma.

“I don’t think that’s an easy feat by any imagination. Those are games we won at home and also away. We take a lot of pride in what we achieved as a team.

“The other comments, we don’t come up with the scheduling. We’d love to play a lot more games like the other (big) three countries around the world.

“Hopefully with the way that we’ve performed, there will be more matches that come our way. We just do what we can as a team. We try to play good cricket. I think it’s not for us as players to really get involved in those negative sentiments, being shared by past players.”

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Proteas cricket team Temba Bavuma

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