South Africa's Bavuma under pressure to deliver at T20 World Cup
The Hindu
South Africa play warm-up games against New Zealand and Bangladesh in Brisbane on October 17 and 19.
Under-fire captain Temba Bavuma is running out of time to find his batting form before leading South Africa's challenge for a maiden T20 World Cup title in Australia.
Bavuma is so out of nick that he was overlooked in the auction for South Africa's new T20 franchise competition and followed that by scoring only three runs in three innings in the recent T20 series in India.
South Africa play warm-up games against New Zealand and Bangladesh in Brisbane on October 17 and 19, before a potential opening World Cup match against the West Indies on October 24, providing the Caribbean team top their preliminary group as expected.
South Africa have a poor record in global tournaments, never winning a World Cup or reaching a final in either 50-over or Twenty20 formats.
They failed to make the T20 World Cup semi-finals a year ago on net run-rate.
They will need their captain Bavuma to start scoring runs if they are to better their previous best of reaching the T20 World Cup semi-finals in 2009 and 2014.
The diminutive Bavuma was appointed South Africa's white-ball captain in 2021.
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