Test Cricket in SA hasn’t been so buoyant and vibrant since 2012 when the Proteas lifted the World Champion Mace to confirm their status as the best team in the world. There wasn’t a single dissenting voice, anywhere. They were indisputably one of the best Test teams of all time.
Having beaten Australia in Perth in November 2012 to claim their second successive series win Down Under, Graeme Smith’s team returned home to beat New Zealand 2-0 and Pakistan 3-0 to complete six successive victories, three short of SA’s longest winning streak of nine, achieved a decade earlier.
Again, it began with a victory against Australia albeit a consolation one at Kingsmead in March 2002 to lose the series 2-1 under Shaun Pollock’s captaincy. The following season, under Smith’s leadership, they beat Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan twice each at home before travelling to Bangladesh and earning two more victories.
The current team, strangely without fanfare or suitable acclaim, have won seven Tests in succession, the second best sequence in SA’s Test history, and it would surely have been eight had rain not denied them a win in Trinidad six months ago.
Coach Shukri Conrad has understandably and rightly been given considerable credit for the Test team’s success and qualification for the World Test Championship final. He is engaging and entertaining in equal measure and has the vital coach’s knack of creating an enjoyable environment for the players. “Leave your egos at the door” will make a suitable epitaph when his international reign ends — hopefully no time soon.
But captain Temba Bavuma, equally strangely, has yet to receive the recognition his influence deserves. Beginning with the Boxing Day Test against India just more than 12 months ago, Bavuma has won eight of his nine games in charge, a better record than any other captain in history. Of any other country.
Australians Warwick Armstrong, Steve Waugh and Donald Bradman finished with winning percentages of 80%, 71.9% and 62.5%, respectively, while Bavuma, who should have plenty of captaincy matches to come, is now on 88.88%.
Bavuma may be an enigma to some, an underachiever to others, but he will be judged and remembered in cricket history by his record, as all captains are. Mike Brearley averaged 19 with the bat as England captain but is revered as one of the greatest captains of all time for the results his team achieved, most notably the “Botham’s Ashes” triumph in 1981.
You may question the strength of the opposition, the venues and the eras in which matches were played, but then you would also have to question the relative strength of Bavuma’s team compared to that Bradman’s “Invincibles”, Waugh’s “Unbeatables” (or “Unlovables”) and even Smith’s team. Bringing the best out of good players may be a greater skill than leading great players to victory. Indeed, turning a group of good players into a team greater than the sum of their parts may be an even more impressive feat.
Take all the mitigating circumstances you like, statistics don’t change. Bare facts laid open to debate and discussion don’t change. Those are the numbers and ... cricket history loves numbers.
Bavuma may not be remembered as a great captain in future — but he might be. Of the 30 players used in the Test squad last year, only Kagiso Rabada is a “great”. Smith, including himself, had five in his team; Hashim Amla, Jacques Kallis, AB de Villiers and Dale Steyn with Morné Morkel and Vernon Philander close to that status.
SA don’t play another Test match on these shores for a staggering 18 months. They will never again play enough fixtures for players to create an adequately sized body of work to qualify for “greatness” in the traditional sense though Keshav Maharav is well on his way. Even 18-year-old Kwena Maphaka will have to stay fit and motivated enough to play Test cricket for the next 15 years to come anywhere near 100 caps.
Cricket lovers need to appreciate the Test Proteas in ways other than quantity of runs and wickets. India’s Jasprit Bumrah, for example, an undisputed great, has the lowest bowling average (19.4) of all current fast bowlers. Marco Jansen (21.76) is in second place, just ahead of Rabada (22) albeit with just 17 Tests to his name against Rabada’s 70.
Whatever happens in the future, starting with the WTC final against Australia on June 11, now is the time to celebrate and enjoy a brilliant run of victories in the hardest but most rewarding format in the game. It’s white ball cricket only for the foreseeable future and, fun as the SA20 — starting tomorrow — will be, it’s just not the same.
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