Proteas carrying no baggage into Champions Trophy, says captain Bavuma

Entering yet another tournament with the hope of ending the nation’s 27-year trophy drought, captain Temba Bavuma insists the Proteas are not carrying any baggage from past performances into the Champions Trophy tournament as they prepare for their opening match against Afghanistan in Karachi on Friday (11am start).

While South Africa have played well at limited overs World Cups in recent years, the national team have not lifted a trophy since they won the inaugural Champions Trophy back in 1998.

Bavuma, however, said the squad were full of confidence heading into the tournament in Pakistan and they were ready to chase what would be a historic title.

“Like in every tournament, we’ll come in with the prospect of seeing ourselves in the final, and obviously going over the line,” Bavuma said.

“I think the nice thing is that we have guys with that experience… and there’s no real baggage which exists among the guys. There’s no negativity from the fact that we haven’t been able to be successful in other ICC (International Cricket Council) events.

“There’s a lot of positivity and confidence in our ability and how far we can go in the tournament.”

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No longer minnows

While Afghanistan were once considered minnows, they are now the fastest rising team in the global game.

They narrowly missed out on a spot in the playoffs at the 2023 World Cup in India and they reached the semifinals of last year’s T20 World Cup in the West Indies, where they lost to the Proteas in the penultimate round.

And when they faced the Proteas in a three-match ODI series last year (albeit against an under-strength South African team) they secured a 2-1 victory.

Strong opposition

Bavuma said they were well aware that they were facing a strong side and they needed to fire from the opening match in order to keep their title hopes alive.

“They (Afghanistan) are a highly competitive team, they’ve got a lot of experience within their team, and they have that international pedigree from a skills point of view,” the skipper said.

“We played against them last year and they were victorious, so they won’t be short of confidence coming into the game.

“We’ve had a good look at them…and we know what to expect, so in terms of our preparation we’ve ticked the boxes we feel we need to tick, but most importantly we’ll have to come out and bring our A game.”