Bavuma says ‘eye-opening’ defeat by Australia inspired South Africa Test transformation

Temba Bavuma said South Africa’s humbling defeat by Australia in their last red-ball meeting was “a critical point in our journey” that transformed the team into World Test Championship finalists.

The teams who contest the final that begins at Lord’s 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 – Bavuma is the only member of the top six who played at the SCG still in the side – that has changed significantly since.

“That wasn’t a good time,” Bavuma said. “I 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.

“At 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.”

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

“We’ve probably played about half of the guys before, but half we haven’t played in red-ball cricket,” said Pat Cummins, the Australia captain. “Throw in the Dukes ball and a neutral ground and there’s a few unknowns, which is exciting. I think we’ll have to problem-solve on our feet a bit. Some of those younger or newer guys in the team that we haven’t seen before, we’re going to have to be pretty sharp on.”

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.

“It’s been a couple of weeks now since everything unfolded,” Bavuma said. “He 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’s behind us. I think he’s in the best shape he’s ever been and that’ll be an extra motivation. I think he’s in a very good space.”