Captain Temba Bavuma expresses hope that the team's triumph over Australia helped earn Proteas' respect, demonstrating that the WTC final was not an accident. After winning by 176 runs, the Proteas team secured a monumental 2-1 series in Newlands on Saturday.
Bavuma is the second Proteas captain to achieve a series win against Australia on home soil since their reformation. This victory also propelled Proteas to the top of the ICC rankings, a position they had not held since January 2016.
Although the concluding day of the series did not feature the intense finale many expected, Proteas faced serious physical and mental challenges every day. Bavuma highly values his team's ability to cope with such pressure and still achieve the desired result.
He stated that this series will be remembered as one of the landmark Test series, at least in this century. He noted that it was a confrontation between two strong teams that forced each other to play at the highest level.
Bavuma emphasized the importance of acknowledging and enjoying the achieved success. He added that before the series, the team felt pressure from all sides every day. He also mentioned that if they had been given favorite status before the series against Australia, he would not have been sure about it, but he hopes their style of play, not just the result, will give them that confidence.
He also noted that in a way, they answered the criticism claiming their performance in the WTC final was a fluke. 'So yes, for the team, the sky is the limit,' he said.
A significant part of Proteas' determination comes from their captain, Bavuma. This was particularly evident in the second match in Gqeberha, when Proteas were at 40/4 and the series was hanging by a thread; it was then that Bavuma played a career-best innings of 179, which ultimately changed the course of the game.
In Newlands, the initiative was taken by less experienced batsmen such as Ryan Rickelton and Vian Mulder, who scored centuries, while Simon Harmer finished the job with the ball.
Bavuma is proud that his players adopted similar traits of defiance. He stated that one always wants to leave a little bit of oneself in the team, and that resilience is a word used within the South African Proteas team. He believes that resilience plays a huge role in his own cricket career.
He explained that one needs to wake up every morning with the thought of being in peak condition. Sometimes you feel like you cannot deliver 100%, but you have to dig deeper. If the opportunity arises, you must be in the best mental state to do the game for the team. Even if something goes wrong with the ball or the bat, you must find ways to contribute to the team. Therefore, he believes that everyone will gain a lot from this series, which was 15 days of pressure. He concluded that as a team, they can only become better through such experience.
Proteas will now have a well-deserved break before facing Bangladesh in a two-match series starting November 15th at Wanderers.
