(Reuters) – South Africa’s cricket team captain, Temba Bavuma, acknowledged the difficulty of shedding their previous label as “chokers” at the World Cup, despite their success so far in managing expectations. The team has historically struggled in big moments during major tournaments, earning them the unfortunate reputation. Bavuma stated that they are actively looking for ways to handle the pressure and expectations, even after winning four out of their five games.
Bavuma told reporters, “I don’t think it’s given us any extra motivation. We looked at ways as to how we can maybe divert our attention away, not necessarily using the ‘chokers’ tag, but how do we address and deal with the precedent expectation.” He further mentioned, “We understand that as the tournament progresses, the more we keep playing well, that’s going to come to the fray. But I think we’ve developed ways as to how we can divert our attention and focus on the important things. It’s still early in the tournament. There’s still going to be pressure situations that we’re going to overcome. If we stumble, we’ll probably have to deal with that tag again.”
Currently, South Africa is in a good position to secure a spot in the semi-finals, ranking second in the standings just behind hosts India. Their next match is against Pakistan in Chennai on Friday. Bavuma mentioned, “Five games ago, we weren’t probably seen as the favourites. But now, there’s a lot more positivity around the Proteas and the South African team.”
In their four victories, South Africa has batted first, achieving an average score of 380. However, Bavuma highlighted the temptation to bat second on a turning pitch in Chennai, influenced by Afghanistan’s success against Pakistan on Monday. He said, “I watched the Afghanistan game with Pakistan and it seemed to get a lot better batting under light. There’s obviously us needing to consider the fact that we’ve had a lot of success of late batting first. So fortunately for me, I don’t have to make that decision right now. But we know somewhere along the line in the tournament we’ll have to bat second. The conversations that we’ve had as batters is to find ways as to how we can still follow that same process that we follow when we’re batting first.”
Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Christian Radnedge
