A diminutive 25-year-old local has become the first Black cricketer to make a Test century South Africa in helping to rescue the Proteas from a second consecutive home defeat at the hands of England during the fourth day of the second Test in Cape Town.
Temba Bavuma’s 102 not out usurped his captain Hashim Amla’s 201 from Wednesday’s front pages because of its significance to a nation whose majority population was, for decades, denied the right not only to represent their nation on the international stage, but to even play the game at a first class level.
The Cape Times devoted the top of its front page to Bavuma with the headline “102 not out”, reporter Michael Mentz describing his knock as the innings of his life at his home ground.
Meanwhile, national newspaper the Times featured a picture of Bavuma at the moment he reached three figures with the headline “Cometh the hour, Cometh the man”.
Firdoose Moonda’s article for ESPN described him as the “son of transformation”. “When he raised his bat at Newlands the only thing he would have seen, heard and felt was passion,” wrote Moonda.
Bavuma’s innings represented part of a rear-guard action by the Proteas, who, having lost the first test, struggled to contain a resurgent England to a mammoth 629 for 6 declared. Proof of the measure of determination displayed by the hosts can be gleaned from the fact that Amla’s double-ton was the third slowest in the history of test cricket at 11 hours 24 minutes. Meanwhile, across the Indian Ocean, a teenager was scoring a thousand runs in six and a half hours!
For South Africa’s Blacks, criticised for underachieving since being admitted into the fold of international cricket and even blamed by those opposed to ‘quota selections’ for South Africa’s failure to dominate the game, Bavuma’s innings represented much more.
The BBC’s cricket correspondent, former England test player Jonathan Agnew said the innings transcended cricket and is amongst the greatest moments he has witnessed in the game.
“I have followed South Africa and witnessed their first tour after they came back into world cricket in 1991 following the wilderness years of apartheid.
“I watched their first Test match back – their first in the West Indies – which was very significant, but the hundred by 25-year-old Bavuma is absolutely up there”, he said.
Interviewed after play ended on day four, Bavuma said: “I would have liked to bat the rest of tomorrow if I could. I was born in Cape Town and my passion for cricket grew from here.
“Having achieved this milestone at my favourite ground in the world makes it more special, but I’m also looking forward to playing at the Wanderers where I made my mark in first-class cricket.”
Bavuma’s feat was watched by his father Vuyo, a former reporter who worked at the Cape Times and Cape Argus, although he was not expecting any favours at the post-match press conference.
“I see he [Vuyo] was here and yes he will also be asking questions just like the journalists do.”
Firdoose Moonda wrote: “There was [first Black South Africa international, Makhaya] Ntini on the commentators’ balcony passing on a baton; there was an elderly white couple in the stands, who would have known the South Africa before Bavuma was born; there was his father in the president’s suite, a place he would not have been allowed near in the bad old days, and there were the KFC kids on the boundary rope from the same township Bavuma was brought up in.
“All of them were smiling, most of them were crying too. What Bavuma achieved was big. Very, very big. Bigger than Bavuma may have thought was possible when he walked out to bat in the second session.”
Born in May 1990, just weeks after Nelson Mandela was released from prison, Temba Bavuma is the sixth Black player to represent South Africa since apartheid and the first to be selected as a specialist batsman. He made his test debut against the West Indies in 2014 and is playing in his seventh Test.
He is the shortest player in South Africa’s set-up and, at 162cm, is 3cm shorter than Sachin Tendulkar, India’s ‘Little Master’, the only player to have scored one hundred international centuries; the first batsman to score a double century in a One Day International (ODI); the holder of the record for the most runs scored overall in both ODI and Test cricket; and the only player to complete more than 30,000 runs in international cricket. No pressure at all, then.
