Temba Bavuma, South Africa's white ball captain, has finally been handed a contract for the SA20. His exclusions throughout the squad building process, from the initial marquee player selections to the main player draft and then finally the wildcard picks. Andile Phehlukwayo, another South African international, was the other standout name to have not been picked up in the draft. He was, however, picked up by the Paarl Royals as a wildcard.
A lot of questions were raised about the omission of Bavuma in any of the initial SA20 squads. He was, of course, the man who led South Africa in the t20 World Cup in Australia towards the end of 2022. Naturally, it would be expected that a country's t20 captain would be almost automatically selected in a home-based t20 tournament. Jos Buttler, Babar Azam and Hardik Pandya are captains of their respective nations for a reason.
However, all that controversy has now somewhat chilled following the announcement that Bavuma has signed for Sunrisers Eastern Cape for what remains of their season. He replaces Tom Abell, who is away on England duty, currently in Sri Lanka with the Lions.
The signing comes in the immediate aftermath of the recently concluded ODI series between South Africa and England. Bavuma led his side to a 2-1 victory in the three match series and in turn finished as his sides' top runscorer with 180 in three innings. Those runs included an impressive hundred in the second ODI, along with a couple of 30s scored at a brisk pace either side of the century. He had been previously criticised for his slow scoring in t20s and so, with the momentum of this standout series behind him and a seemingly different mentality, he will finally get to grace his country's first franchise tournament.
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