Both of them got ‘stuck in’ to rise to the occasion at Newlands for the New Year’s Test
Firdose Moonda03-Jan-2025The first hundreds Temba Bavuma and Ryan Rickelton scored this summer – in Durban and Gqeberha respectively – were knocks of relief. Before Kingsmead, Bavuma had returned from an elbow injury, with no red-ball match practice ahead of the Test, and only two Test hundreds after a decade in the game. Before St George’s Park, Rickelton had played eight Tests with a top score of 42 and had shown little sign he could transfer his domestic dominance to international success. As both of them raised the bats they proved a point: we can and we will. By the time they got to Cape Town, everybody knew that.So these hundreds, Bavuma’s fourth and Rickelton’s second were laced with what Rickelton called “enjoyment,” because, “I played the game the way I want to play the game.”South Africa were in a touch of trouble at 72 for 3 at lunch but after the tension of their two-wicket win at SuperSport Park, which confirmed their participation in June’s World Test Championship (WTC) final, Newlands was always going to be something of a riot. They were helped by one of the flattest pitches seen at this ground in recent memory – likely an overcompensation for last year’s aberration where the Test ended in 107 overs – and an uninspired Pakistan attack that lacked genuine pace. But they still had to get the job done, each under their own microscope.Related
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Rickelton was opening for the first time in a Test after spending most of his short career at No. 5. Promoted to No.3 in Gqeberha, he said he preferred playing against the new ball because it tightened his game, and he has some experience of opening at domestic level. So, he was a natural replacement for Tony de Zorzi, who was out injured, but came with the knowledge that this was the only place for him to play. “I just want to bat,” Rickelton said. “It doesn’t matter where, I just want a bat I get stuck in. I just want to play in this team and bat and score Test runs.”That desire was evident in the way he played: aggressively. Pakistan offered boundary balls and he cashed in. His century came off 135 balls, and his strike rate of 75.86 is his highest in any innings where he has scored more than 8. It was an indication of his proactivity.
A moment to remember!
Verreynne hands over the match stump to Temba Bavuma after the skipper’s brilliant 4th Test century yesterday.
Inspirational leadership and class at the crease! #WozaNawe #BePartOfIt #SAvPAK pic.twitter.com/F1st41CtoQ
— Proteas Men (@ProteasMenCSA) January 4, 2025
Bavuma came to the crease with the same kind of conviction. Though he was the leading run-scorer in the series against Sri Lanka, his dismissal at SuperSport Park was so distressing – he walked when he had not nicked Mohammad Abbas and sparked a South African collapse that nearly cost them the game – that he hid in the bathroom until they were 15 runs away from winning. After that, Bavuma spoke passionately about being “berated and ridiculed” for playing with a hamstring injury in the 2023 ODI World Cup semi-final and the sounds of silence he has battled though this summer with two heavily strapped elbows. Those didn’t bother him in this innings, but he had cramp in the calf as he entered the 90s and asked Rickelton to “pull the old man through.”When his hundred came, Bavuma broke into a celebration that was completely out of character. He pumped his elbows several times, ran almost all the way to the boundary and cut his bat through the air as though he was slicing through criticism. What was that about? “The celebration just happened spontaneously,” Bavuma said afterwards.Temba Bavuma celebrates his fourth Test ton•Gallo Images/Getty Images”Obviously there was a lot of emotion behind it, more around the fact of having crossed the three-figure mark. I was quite frustrated at my last innings at Centurion – the manner that I went out, albeit I was obviously trying to make a play for the team. I wanted to make a bigger contribution towards the team and get away from the 40s and 50s that I have been getting. The celebration was around that. And also to prove to myself that I can play when there’s not much on the game.”There’s a poetic synchrony to Bavuma scoring the hundreds at Newlands. It’s the ground where he made his first Test hundred nine years ago, against England. Then, he was the face of hope in an experienced batting line-up; now he is the experience in a hopeful one. “The situations were a bit different. The first time I came in there was a bigger partnership that had been laid by Hash(im Amla), Faf (du Plessis) and the boys. Obviously I was under pressure as well from my place on the team,” he said. “Today, I was hitting the ball out the middle from relatively early on within my innings. It probably seemed a lot more fluent. I don’t think I made a lot of mistakes so there was a lot more class here if I could say.”And a lot more seniority and a lot of people looking up to him, including Rickelton. The two are domestic team-mates and to share a record-partnership in the New Year’s Test – South Africa’s marquee match of the season – in front of a sellout crowd with festive vibes fizzing in the air is something they will both remember for a long time to come. “We don’t talk a lot (when we’re batting), but we just emphasise doing the basics for long periods of time,” Rickleton said. “To share the partnership out there with the captain of South Africa, also captain of the Lions, is special for me and I like to think for him also. It was just really, really cool.”
