What delicious, smile-inducing moments we have seen in the first fortnight of June. The first was when Royal Challengers Bengaluru won the IPL trophy after a long wait of 18 years. If that was a feel-good moment, then perhaps even more emotional was South Africa winning a world title after a wait of around 27 years by clinching the World Test Championship, beating Australia in the final.
That at the helm of this historic win was a player who was not widely accepted as a captain by many people from the other community makes this win an even more seminal moment in the history of South African cricket. After this win, where he had such a major role to play not only as a captain but as a top-order batter, any lingering doubts about him as a player and captain will be put to rest. By all accounts, Temba Bavuma is a popular captain in the dressing room and even the players from the other community like him. He isn’t loud or demonstrative with his demeanour, actions or words, and that has made him a wonderful role model. In the way he walks out to bat and carries himself on the field, he is so much like that genius, Gundappa Viswanath. Of course, with no disrespect at all to the Proteas captain talent-wise, there’s no comparison, as Vishy, being a genius, is incomparable.
This loss would be a bitter pill to swallow for the Australians, as they usually win the final most times they play. Pat Cummins was once again terrific with the ball, but tactically, he could have tried a few things differently. With the ball turning a fair bit on the third day itself, Nathan Lyon continued to bowl over the wicket to both the right-handers, Aiden Markram and Bavuma, during their long partnership. If he had gone round the wicket, he would have brought both the outside edge and inside edge of the bat into play, with the ball turning as well as going straight through.
The fast bowlers also hardly tried the short ball to cause any false shot or ruffle the batter. In fact, the bouncer is becoming more of a rarity in today’s cricket, and that’s why more and more batters have almost forgotten how to use the depth of the crease and play off the back foot. The scoring avenues that open up when a batter also uses the back foot are far greater than off the front foot, but apart from Steve Smith, most of the modern batters with their legs spread wide in the stance are unable to transfer the balance to their back foot and so miss out on more scoring opportunities.
While there would be questions asked about the fall of 32 wickets in the first three days, most had to do with the fallout of the T20 format and not much to do with the pitch. The T20 format makes a batter look to clear his front foot so he can swing his bat freely for the lofted shot. At the Test level though, and that too in England with the Dukes ball, it is crucial for the batter to get his front foot as close to the ball as possible to negate the movement. Most batters got out playing away from their body, possibly because of coming to the Test match after the IPL. Markram made the adjustment beautifully after his first-innings duck, where he too got out playing away from his leg guards. A wonderful century, and as he said, the most important runs he has ever scored for his country.
Those runs and the lion-hearted bowling of Kagiso Rabada and Lungi Ngidi helped South Africa to a long-awaited world title in cricket, and hopefully removed the chokers tag forever.