Temba Bavuma played a strong inningsImage Credit source: PTI
The Indian team made a strong start to its home Test season and won the first series easily. Under the captaincy of Shubman Gill, Team India defeated West Indies 2-0 in the series. Now once again Gill and Company are going to enter the field. After finishing the ODI and T20 series on Australia tour, the Indian team is again returning to the Test format. But this time the challenge before him is more difficult than West Indies, because this time the competition is with the current World Test champion South Africa. Team India has got a glimpse of how difficult this series will be.
The 2-match Test series between India and South Africa will start from November 14 at Eden Gardens, Kolkata. Before this series, a 2-Test series was also played between India A and South Africa A, which ended on Sunday 9 November. South Africa A won this match by 5 wickets and achieved this victory by achieving a huge target of 417 runs. This victory of the South African team was special because it scored these runs against some bowlers who will be part of the team in the Test series.
South African captain Bavuma warned
Experienced batsman Temba Bavuma made a special contribution in this victory of South Africa A. Captain Bavuma, who made South Africa the World Test champion, was a part of only the second match in this ‘A’ series, where he was playing only as a batsman. This match did not start well for Bavuma and he became the victim of a ‘golden duck’ in the first innings. But in the second innings, that too on the fourth day of the match, Bavuma played an important role in the team’s victory by batting brilliantly.
Bavuma spent a long time at the crease and played a strong inning of 59 runs facing 101 balls. This inning of his was important because he was returning from this match after being out for several weeks due to injury. Also, he scored these runs in front of experienced bowlers like Mohammad Siraj, Akash Deep, Kuldeep Yadav and Prasidh Krishna. Of these, except Prasidh, all three are part of the Test series and at least Siraj-Kuldeep can be seen playing both the Tests.
Such is Bavuma’s record in India.
In such a situation, just before the Kolkata Test, the South African captain would have got good batting practice as well as confidence from this innings. Bavuma’s performance against India, especially in India, has not been anything special. Since his first tour of India in 2015, this right-handed batsman has played only 4 Tests in India and in this he has been able to score only 152 runs without any half-century. But this time the situation may be different because Bavuma has been scoring runs continuously for the last one and a half years. During this period, he has scored 711 runs in 13 innings of 7 Tests at an average of 59. In such a situation, this time the South African captain can prove to be a disaster for Team India.