The South African team got a major setback after AB de Villiers’ retirement announcement from all the formats with immediate effect in the last month. He was in sublime forms and had played a crucial role in the recent Test series against India and Australia. While they will be worried about the World Cup which is less than a year away, the Test team needs to find his replacement as soon as possible. However, Temba Bavuma seems to be the person to do the job in Test at the number 4 slot in the batting line-up of Proteas.
Usually, Bavuma plays at number 6 for his team ever since he has made his debut in Test cricket. But he found himself out of the playing XI after De Villiers made his come back to the international arena with the Test series against India. It seems that now he will slot back into the team now for the upcoming tour of Sri Lanka.
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Temba Bavuma is confident of doing well in Test cricket as, during Proteas Training camp in Pretoria, he said,  “I’ll be opportunistic. There is a role for someone to come in at No. 4 and I’ll put up my hand to bat in that position. Hopefully, the selectors are looking towards me. Maybe it is something that could help my game because I haven’t been able to convert my starts. Coming in at No. 4, the opportunity will be there to score those big runs, and you have to score big runs actually. With what I am trying to achieve, it could work hand in hand.”
Bavuma has visited India during the 2015 tour and since then he had emerged as one of the better players of spin bowling in the team. They will face a similar challenge in Sri Lanka and he is hoping that the ball won’t turn much like it did in India.
As quoted in Cricbuzz, Temba said, “From a team point of view we didn’t do as well as we wanted to so there will be those gremlins in our heads, but I guess we got the opportunity to face the extreme of spin. Hopefully, in Sri Lanka, it’s not like that, but we will try to prepare for the worst and hopefully the good comes.”
