Bavuma backing Proteas attack to succeed
As the Proteas gear up for another One Day International
series, this time in Sri Lanka, captain Temba Bavuma is confident that his
bowling unit can do a good job no matter what conditions they are faced with.
The first 50 over match of the series gets underway on Thursday in Colombo with an away ODI series win a rare occurrence for the Proteas in the recent past. Despite this record and the threat of difficult conditions, Bavuma believes they have the firepower needed.
“We did expect the conditions here to favour the slower bowlers,” Bavuma said. “We’ve tried to prepare ourselves as well as we can from a mental and skill point of view, and we’ve put in the work and now it’s about us trusting that we’ve done enough.
“Looking at our bowling attack there is a better balance in that if the pitches are seamer friendly, we’ve got options to exploit that.
“If the pitches favour the slower bowlers, as well expect, then we do have the bowlers to be effective.
“I think that we are well equipped from a bowling point of view.”
The Proteas begin the series without their former assistant coach Enoch Nkwe who resigned from his role recently. Nkwe sighted team culture as one of the reasons for his resignation and Bavuma hopes that his team’s culture is an inclusive one.
“Every team has areas in which they can improve on and you have to have those conversations to identify those areas.
“In terms of understanding it a bit more from Enoch’s point of view, when I get back to South Africa and things have calmed down a bit from a schedule perspective I will have a sit down with him,” Bavuma commented.
The Proteas will be without a number of their big guns for the ODI series with the likes of Quinton de Kock, David Miller and Lungi Ngidi in the 50 overs squad but the trio will rejoin the squad ahead of the T20’s.
