PERTH: Shaun Pollock, a former South African all-rounder, compared Temba Bavuma's poor batting form to that of Australia captain Aaron Finch, who on Monday finally broke a string of subpar scores with a tenacious half-century against Ireland. Despite Temba Bavuma leading his team admirably in the ICC T20 World Cup here, Pollock believes pressure is mounting on the batsman's captaincy.
Pollock felt sympathy for Bavuma, who was dismissed for 10 runs while opening the innings with Quinton de Kock against India, but the captain's bowling strategy worked perfectly as the 2007 champions were held to a disappointing 133/9, and the Proteas then scored the winning runs in 19.4 overs for an exciting victory.
"Shame, you feel bad for the guy (Bavuma). He is clearly leading his men as best he can from a captaincy standpoint, but every captain in the world enjoys taking the initiative when it comes to performance, and he hasn't been able to do that "On Tuesday, Pollock stated on ICC Review.
"There is unquestionably increasing pressure on him. He is a unique person. He is an individual. He is aware of what he desires. To succeed in that he hasn't yet been able to click, and he would love nothing more than to have a little match-winning 40 or 50 to push his team across the finish line and win a few games, "insisted Bavuma. On Thursday, South Africa will play Pakistan, who will be eager to win after narrow losses to India and Zimbabwe in the Super 12 stage. Pollock thinks that South Africa's victory over India will inspire them to play better in their next games.
"We're arguably the greatest people to demonstrate how little margins can make a significant difference. Also, South Africa won by a slim margin (against India) "added he. "And perhaps the fact that the opening match against Zimbabwe was postponed due to rain means we got the World Cup's rainy phase out of the way early, and we can just have some good weather going ahead."
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