Feb 2 (PR): 

International Cricket Council (ICC) have announced the schedule of this year’s t20 world cup and South African team is placed in Group-2 along with India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and two qualified teams from first stage of the tournament. Proteas team was fantastic with their performance last year in UAE as team won 4 group games out five and still failed to reach the semifinals.

Nobody was expecting such kind of performance from African team but the credit should go to the captain Temba Bavuma. He’s got some quality leadership skills that give South Africa confidence that side can do well in the upcoming 2022 world cup. In a recent time, Proteas defeated West Indies 3-2, Ireland and Sri Lanka 3-0 each in T20I series to show how good Bavuma was. Not only in T20s, but SA beat India in ODI series at home 3-0.

As per his interview with Betway, he’s enjoying captaincy role with the team as most of the players have played with him at school level and this helps him to communicate better and they all understand each other better. 

“The journey is still young with the white-ball teams, I must say. But I’ve enjoyed it so far. I was fortunate in that most of the guys, especially the senior guys, I’ve played with from school level. We understand each other and, most importantly, the respect is there,” Bavuma added.

He also mentioned that having former destructive middle order batsman JP Duminy in the management camp helped them to get better idea about the game.

“We’re fortunate that we have several legends of the past who I can call upon, too. JP Duminy was in the T20 management camp and he added to the brains of the team. He has a great brain and I bounced ideas off him. I spend a lot of time with KG [Rabada] on and off the field. Shamo [Tabraiz Shamsi] and Quinton [de Kock], too. These are important players to have good relationships with as a captain,” he said in the interview.

The biggest advantage he sees that when you know about yourself better, it helps you to compete in any situation of the game. The captain and players should be clear about their game and mindset what they want to do to take team cross the line.

“The better you know yourself, the less likely you are to be affected by what other people say about you. I pride myself in being honest, understanding where I can improve but also not losing focus from taking the team forward.”

“It’s so important to be clear with your plans and clear with what you want to do. Then anything else can just be discarded. My skillset is not the same as a guy who comes in at the back of the innings, like David Miller. David generally has to be able to hit sixes from ball one. That isn’t my role in the side – I know what my strengths are. I take a lot of inspiration from Hashim Amla. When he first came into the system he wasn’t considered a classic T20 player but he was able to adapt his game.”

He further entitled that Hashim Amla was not the hard hitting guy in the side but he adapted his game brilliantly and performed for the team in t20s.

“We want to continue the journey towards being considered among the world’s best again.”

So South African side would definitely be the team to watch out for ICC T20 World Cup 2022 be held in Australia between 16 October and 13 November.