Bavuma fine-tuning his game ahead of Windies challenge

TEST captain Temba Bavuma will be alongside Wiaan Mulder, Matthew Breetzke, Tony de Zorzi, Lungi Ngidi, Kyle Verreynne, Dane Paterson and Tristan Stubbs at Kingsmead Stadium in Durban this week as the first day of the pre-Caribbean tour camp gets under way.

While seven other squad members are in the US competing in the Major League Cricket tournament, Bavuma and Co will be getting together for the first time since the New Year’s Test at Newlands.

Coming on the back of a lot of white-ball cricket recently, the objectives of the camp will be for the players to polish their red-ball skills, and remind themselves of the team’s philosophy.

Despite the Proteas’ 2-0 Test series victory during their last visit to the Caribbean three years ago and the West Indies’ innings defeat to England in the first Test at Lord's earlier this week, they are a formidable unit in their backyard.

Red-ball head coach Shukri Conrad has today named a 16-player squad for the two-match Test series against West Indies, which starts on 07 August in Trinidad and Tobago.

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“We’re looking forward to a competitive West Indies team,” Bavuma said.

“About three years ago, their bowling attack put us under pressure. I think the Duke ball in those conditions does talk a bit, it does move around and they have the resources to do that. As inexperienced as some of their players will be, we’ll still need to be on our A-game in all disciplines.

“It will also be a good challenge where we also have newer faces, some inexperience within our team, to see how those guys go about their international careers within the red-ball space. That’s something that we’re looking forward to.

“Every series is an important one. We don’t have the privilege of looking too far ahead with us being placed at No.7 (in the World Test Championship). It’s for us to look to play our best cricket in those conditions and take the confidence from that.

“We know that winning breeds confidence and it can become a habit as well.

“If we can start doing that in the West Indies, that would be good for us. But again, we’re not looking too far ahead. We want to get there, understanding that we haven’t played Test cricket for a while.

“It’s about us reminding ourselves of our philosophy as a team, building that winning culture again and carrying that throughout the season.”

With Dean Elgar having called time on his career during the drawn series against India earlier this year, this means Bavuma is now the senior batter within the team with 97 innings under the belt.

Bavuma feels no added pressure.

“It’s just an awareness in terms of knowing that you’re the senior statesman within the team and not an added pressure or anything like that,” he said.

“I will still try to fulfil my role as a batter and put the team in winning positions. Nothing is going to change from that.”

With the likes of Aiden Markram and some of the Proteas T20 World Cup finalists set to join the Test side before the start of the Windies series, there will be some confidence that they will bring into the Test space.

“There’s a lot of confidence that will emanate within the group seeing the success of the boys in the T20 side,” he said.

“We’ll take the confidence that will come with the guys who were at the World Cup and have them lead things from that perspective.

“But I think within the Test space we’re not as far ahead as the T20 players are and even the 50-over space. There are a couple of hurdles that we need to get through as a Test team.

“We’re still finding ourselves, if we’re being honest. That’s really where our focus is within the Test team.”

The camp will run until Friday. The first Test is scheduled to start on August 7 in Port of Spain. It will be preceded by a warm-up match, starting on July 31.