Leading Edge: The importance of being Temba Bavuma

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE, Port Elizabeth

THE best thing that happened to SA cricket in 2014 occurred at 1.26pm on Wednesday when a door beyond the St George’s Park media dining room, which is beyond the press conference room, which are both in the same large room, opened in a flash flood of sunshine.

By then, Hashim Amla and Denesh Ramdin had given their captains’ press conferences ahead of the second test. Ramdin and his players were on their way back to their hotel even as Amla’s men readied themselves for a hot afternoon’s training.

Then the door swung softly ajar. In the dazzling rectangle of light stood a man, broad-shouldered but slight, just 1.61 metres tall, and older than his 24 years. His name was Temba Bavuma.

By Friday morning, 1448 days and 30 tests had passed since a black African was last in SA’s XI in the premier format - a disgrace. With Bavuma’s inclusion came the beginning of a redemption of sorts.

Bavuma does not deserve his place because he is black - he deserves his place and he is black. His blackness is not co-incidental just as it is not the reason he was chosen. But it takes the sting out of the embarrassment of a team that does not look like most of us claiming to represent the nation. SA’s team still do not represent us anywhere near properly, but - like mlungus who score points even for mispronouncing words in an African language - the effort is appreciated.

Sixty-eight first-class matches is adequate preparation to take your first step as a test player. Eight centuries, six of them scored at franchise level, an average of 35.95, which goes up to 40.36 for the Lions, and just 10 ducks in 116 innings, many of them undertaken near the sharp end of the batting order, all show you can play. All you need to prove it is the chance Bavuma has been given, albeit by injuries to others.

A victory has been won. The only losers are the sad dinosaurs who refuse to believe that SA cricket does not belong to all who love it.

This triumph comes at the end of a year in which SA felt the double-edged sword of losing a home series to Australia - which keeps intact their unwanted record of not having taken a rubber off the Aussies in this country since re-admission - and winning only their second series in Sri Lanka, and that for the first time since 1993.

Mitchell Johnson bestrode the country like a man 10 times Bavuma’s height, scaring the bejaysus out of all who faced him and taking their wickets into the bargain. Previously prone to inconsistency - Australians talk about “Good Mitch” and “Bad Mitch” - Johnson seemed incapable of bowling a single ball that would not dismiss or discombobulate, or both, SA’s batsmen.

Seldom have a public grown used to seeing their own fast bowlers derail opponents been so taken with a foreign marauder. Johnson was the cowboy in the black hat, as impossible to dislike as he was to ignore. There can be no better marketing for test cricket than the visceral violence he wrought. He would have blown anyone away, so in a strange way his SA victims should be honoured.

Before the series was over, an era ended. Graeme Smith’s announcement of his imminent retirement during the Newlands test hit South Africans with the same force as Johnson’s deliveries clattered into bodies, helmets and stumps. Smith had so much left to give, but he chose to give it to himself and his family. After all he gave to SA who could fault him for that.

That made the Galle test Hashim Amla’s first as captain, and a fine fist he made of engineering SA’s maiden win there - all grit and application in the most alien of conditions.

But the victory was doubly tainted: first by Vernon Philander’s conviction for ball-tampering, then by SA officials’ attempts to cover up the scandal by demanding that the broadcasters not air the relevant footage.

SA’s 4-1 loss in a one-day series in Australia rattled those who thought the team were ready for the World Cup. Clearly, they have work to do.

There were happier headlines when, as expected, SA smashed West Indies by an innings at Centurion. No-one blinked at that. But we all did when a door opened at St George’s Park to let the light in. Let no-one close it.