Klusener bats for Bavuma

One of the most vicious punishers of a cricket ball stands up for a player who spends his time at the crease apparently batting for a PhD.

TELFORD VICE in London

THE good news is that all of the members of South Africa’s men’s squad for the T20 series starting in Dharamshala on Sunday have played in India before.

The better news is that 10 of them have first-hand experience of trying to keep it together in the barely managed mayhem that is an Indian Premier League or Champions League game or an international in that country.

The best news is that the other four are at the start of their careers at the highest level, and so keen to make their mark whatever it takes — and wherever chasing that goal takes them.

Bad news? Lance Klusener, South Africa’s batting coach for the series, was having none of that from the moment he sat down behind the microphones at a press conference in Dharamshala on Saturday: “Good afternoon everybody. Welcome. Testing …”

Klusener surveyed a room crowded with 50 or so reporters. For a piddling T20? In one of India’s farthest flung venues, some 2 650 kilometres north of Bangalore?

“The biggest challenge in India is dealing with the conditions, and that’s not necessarily just the wicket,” Klusener said.

“It’s the weather, amazingly full stadiums, wonderful, full press conferences … It’s a wonderful challenge.

“There’s a lot of things off the ball that you need to deal with. Once you can get your head around that it makes playing easier.”

Seconds passed emptily and Klusener, famously media-shy as a player, thought he was done: “Yes! Brilliant! I love you guys!”

But among the challenges of touring India is that reporters take their time before asking questions.

When the next one came it was heavy with the implication. Temba Bavuma was a “red-ball specialist” who had a “defensive technique”. T20 was “not his natural game”.

Bavuma, who needs only a T20 cap to complete his green-and-gold collection, is the sturdy little fella who more often than not strides to the middle with South Africa’s test team in trouble. And gets them out of it.

He is a man for the trenches. But maybe not for the wrenches of T20?

“It’s easy to pigeonhole him and say he plays test cricket,” Klusener said. “But Temba’s a wonderful allround cricketer.

“Yes, he has to maybe learn a couple of options, which we’re trying to get our teeth into. But that, really, is it.

“He’s not the biggest guy — he can’t muscle the ball over the fence. But there’s different ways of doing it. It’s about us giving him that option.

“I’m uncomfortable just saying he’s a red-ball cricketer. He’s played two ODIs with a hundred and a fifty.”

Actually, Bavuma scored 113 and 48 in those games: against Bangladesh — in 2016, long before they became the terrier welterweights they were at this year’s World Cup — and Ireland.

But there was no derailing the Klusener Express: “He’s a good cricketer who just needs that opportunity. He’ll certainly get that opportunity on this tour, and I think he’s ready to make the transition into being somebody in the engine room who can be good at rotating the strike and have good plans.

“Hitters like Dave [Miller] and Dwaine [Pretorius] and Andile [Phehlukwayo] — some of the biggest hitters on the planet — can bat around somebody like that.”

The spectacle of one of the most vicious punishers of a cricket ball the game has yet seen standing up for a player who spends most of his time at the crease apparently batting for a PhD was at once heartwarming and important.

On Friday, Bavuma cleared the decks of cricket talk to say: “We’re here trying to play for the people back home, but there are bigger issues affecting the nation. The whole issue with woman abuse, the xenophobic attacks — it’s scary.

“We also have wives. We’ve got women in our lives. The last thing we want is for women to get embroiled in all of that.

“We have friends who are foreigners, and the last thing you want to hear is that something has happened to them.

“So as a South African and as a Protea, on behalf of the guys we’d like to send a voice, a word of encouragement to the people back home.

“Let’s look after each other. As the Proteas we are diverse but united, and we’d like the same thing back home.”

Give that man a cap.

First published by the Sunday Times.