{"id":174746,"date":"2025-06-11T04:38:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T04:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/174746\/"},"modified":"2025-06-11T04:38:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T04:38:09","slug":"bavuma-says-eye-opening-defeat-by-australia-inspired-south-africa-test-transformation-cricket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/174746\/","title":{"rendered":"Bavuma says \u2018eye-opening\u2019 defeat by Australia inspired South Africa Test transformation | Cricket"},"content":{"rendered":"

Temba Bavuma said South Africa\u2019s humbling defeat by Australia in their last red-ball meeting was \u201ca critical point in our journey\u201d that transformed the team into World Test Championship<\/a> finalists.<\/p>\n

The teams who contest the final that begins at Lord\u2019s on Wednesday last came up against each other in 2022-23, when South Africa were comfortably beaten in the first two games of the series and were on their way to another emphatic defeat in the last before rain in Sydney saved them. Their belief is that it is not only their personnel \u2013 Bavuma is the only member of the top six who played at the SCG still in the side \u2013 that has changed significantly since.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat wasn\u2019t a good time,\u201d Bavuma said. \u201cI think for a lot of us who were there it was a little bit of an eye-opener, playing against Australia, seeing how their batters went about their business, facing their bowlers and how you were always under pressure and had to find ways to exert pressure back on them.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt least for me, that gave me an opportunity to kind of have a look at my game to see where I can improve, and hopefully try to emulate the performances those batters were putting up. And I think also in terms of the way we wanted to play our cricket as a whole, it influenced that, encouraging guys to be themselves, to play their best cricket. Hopefully those memories are behind us and we can create new ones now. But I think it was a critical point in our journey as cricketers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those three Tests are the only red-ball meetings between these sides in the past seven years \u2013 in the same period Australia have faced England 15 times, and India 18 times \u2013 and one of the challenges the holders and favourites will have to deal with is unfamiliarity with their opponents.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve probably played about half of the guys before, but half we haven\u2019t played in red-ball cricket,\u201d said Pat Cummins, the Australia captain. \u201cThrow in the Dukes ball and a neutral ground and there\u2019s a few unknowns, which is exciting. I think we\u2019ll have to problem-solve on our feet a bit. Some of those younger or newer guys in the team that we haven\u2019t seen before, we\u2019re going to have to be pretty sharp on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quick GuideAustralia v South Africa: confirmed World Test Championship final teamsShow<\/p>\n

Australia<\/b> Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Cameron Green, Steve Smith, Travis Head, Beau Webster, Alex Carey (wk), Pat Cummins (c), Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood<\/p>\n

South Africa<\/b> Aiden Markram, Ryan Rickelton, Wiaan Mulder, Temba Bavuma (c), Tristan Stubbs, David Bedingham, Kyle Verreynne (wk), Marco Jansen, Keshav Maharaj, Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi<\/p>\n

11-15 June, Lord’s<\/p>\n

Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n

Those three matches in Australia are not the only Test failures on the minds of the South Africa team ahead of this game, which sees Kagiso Rabada return to the side for the first time since he completed his one-month ban for testing positive for cocaine in January.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a couple of weeks now since everything unfolded,\u201d Bavuma said. \u201cHe had a conversation with the team, put himself on the spot for further questioning from any of the players. And as far as we know, that\u2019s behind us. I think he\u2019s in the best shape he\u2019s ever been and that\u2019ll be an extra motivation. I think he\u2019s in a very good space.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Temba Bavuma said South Africa\u2019s humbling defeat by Australia in their last red-ball meeting was \u201ca critical point…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4101],"tags":[1406,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-174746","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114662886971621650","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}