‘Choke? I doubt you would say that about India’: Temba Bavuma dismisses South Africa’s past | Cricket-world-cup News

South Africa captain Temba Bavuma had to navigate around familiar questions about the ‘choking’ tag before their high-profile clash against India at the Eden Gardens on Sunday. He paused as stifled laughter could be heard around the room, and conjured up his best poker-faced expression and answered.
“To choke? I don’t know how to answer that. I think if we come unstuck tomorrow, I don’t think it’ll be a matter of choking. I doubt you would say that about India as well if they come unstuck if they choke,” he said when asked if the tag was on the South African players’ mind before such an important game.
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“You got two teams who are in-form, coming up against each other and I think it’s just a matter of who breaks first and who’s able to, I guess, exploit that moment or that weakness. We understand that there will be pressure moments within the World Cup, moments that we’ve overcome to get to this point, and there will still be more. We’ll deal with them as best as we can. But yeah, I haven’t heard that word come up as of yet in the training,” he added in the pre-match press conference on Saturday.

The Proteas skipper has had a forgettable campaign with the bat having scored 8, 35, 16, 28 and 24 in the 5 matches he has played. With Reeza Hendriks waiting in the wings and pouncing on every opportunity given to him, the pressure will be mounting on Bavuma to convert his starts. Former South Africa captain Graeme Smith has already spoken about how he would like to see Bavuma “step up”.
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“You always want to be making contributions. Like you said, the other batters are smashing it at the moment. I think I take comfort in the fact that I’ve been involved in some partnerships with Quinton [De Kock] up front. Obviously, you want to extend it. I guess from my side, maybe it’s just one of those patches again where you are kind of scratching, but I think you’ve got to keep that belief that the opportunity will be there for me to make a big play within the team,” he said.
Bavuma also said that South Africa needed to bring their A game on Sunday due to the Indian bowlers’ fiery form after they demolished Sri Lanka in their last encounter.
“You respect the strength and the threats that they bring. It’s obviously a world-class bowling attack in their condition, so they know everything about these conditions. So we’re going to have to have our A games come tomorrow. But when I say we stick to our processes, we prepare as well as we can. We try to cover all our bases, make sure that we’re not surprised anything, and get ourselves into a space where we can play our best cricket,” he said.
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