Temba Bavuma Says He's Fit To Lead South Africa In Their ICC T20 World Cup 2022 Opener Against Zimbabwe

South Africa captain Temba Bavuma has declared himself fit and is raring to lead his team against Zimbabwe in their T20 World Cup 2022 encounter which will be played in Hobart’s Bellerive Oval on October 24, 2022.

Bavuma’s place has been under severe scrutiny given his less-than-desired numbers in the shortest format of the game and also that he went unsold in the player auction of South Africa’s ambitious SA 20 T20 league. He has also suffered from injuries and missed out on the last two ODIs against India in India recently.

South Africa lost the T20I series 2-1, and also lost the ODI series 2-1, with Keshav Maharaj and David Miller captaining the Proteas after Bavuma was ruled out with illness after the first one-day. But he says he is now ready and looking forward to leading the team at the finals.

“I feel good. I was out of action the last week in India due to sickness. I’ve come here to Australia still kind of recovering but I’ve gotten over that now. I’ve had a few sessions in the net and I’m feeling good ahead of the next couple of days and weeks,” Bavuma said to media at the pre-match press briefing on Sunday.

“In terms of the team, there won’t be any surprises in terms of everyone within the group. We know what we want to do, we know how we’re going to do it and we’re all quite comfortable around all of that,” he added.

We’ve Spoken About The Zimbabwe Match In Our Planning And Meetings Is To Execute As Well As Possible: Temba Bavuma

South Africa will play Zimbabwe in their first match of the tournament. The Proteas were heartbreakingly eliminated from the group stage in the 2021 T20 World Cup due to net run rate despite winning 3 out of their 5 matches.

Talking about the Zimbabwe match, Bavuma said: “Probably the biggest takeaway from the previous World Cup is that every game matters. You want to obviously try and perform as well as you can but make sure that you keep a pulse on that run rate, that net run rate.  

If there’s an opportunity to really go well then make sure that you do so. We have Zimbabwe as our opening game and everything we’ve spoken about in our planning and meetings is to execute as well as we can in that game.  We want to obviously start on a positive note, we don’t want to ease ourselves into the tournament because there really isn’t any time to do that, so tomorrow is an opportunity for us to execute our skills and our plans accordingly.” 

The two teams are joined in Group B of the Super 12 stage of the competition by India, Pakistan, Netherlands, and Bangladesh, who are up next for South Africa on Thursday.

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