Guwahati: A ‘jealous’ Temba Bavuma watched the Ashes action unfold in Perth on Friday morning and wondered why South Africa get to play just a two-Test series against India despite being the reigning World Champions in the traditional format.
Bavuma, who led South Africa to the WTC title earlier this year, said the brief series does little justice to the contest between two of the strongest red-ball sides in world cricket.
“We woke up this morning to watch the Ashes. We watched with a bit of jealousy, knowing that they were playing five Tests. They’ll be going at each other,” Bavuma said, clearly unimpressed that a champion team gets to play a short series.
“Hopefully, not too far in the future, but more in the near future, we’ll go back to play four tests against India.” The South African skipper has been in the business long enough to know that players hardly have any say in the “mapping of schedules”. The number of Tests in a series is directly proportional to financial health of a cricket nation.
Hence the Ashes, the Border-Gavaskar Trophy (India vs Australia) and the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy (India vs England) are five-match series because of their commercial viability.
But all other nations that India play against are generally two-Test series, whether it is South Africa, New Zealand, West Indies or Bangladesh.
“Players are not involved when it comes to mapping out the schedule. I think every of our players who have had the opportunity to interact with the media, have had that question in front of them. They have voiced out their frustration,” the Proteas skipper said.
India stand-in skipper Rishabh Pant echoed the sentiment, acknowledging that scheduling is beyond the team’s control, but admitted that a two-Test series heightens pressure after an early loss.
“When you have a two-match series, it’s harder because the pressure becomes more if you lose the first match. But at the same time, you know, these are the things which we can’t control as a team,” he said.
What makes a two-Test series less entertaining is that the probability of a drawn series is way more compared to a result that three-game series can yield.
“Look, however way the series goes, 1-1, 2-0, it would be nice for a three-Test series against a formidable team like India. And it’s just good for the fans, really, when people get to see good cricket, one team dominating, another team dominating. But there also being an opportunity for one team to come out as victors,” he said, explaining the rationale behind a minimum three-game series.
For South Africa though, their inspirational skipper wants to continue doing the good on-field work and compel the stakeholders to give them a fair deal.
“Like I’ve already said, as players, all we can do is what we’ve been trying to do out on the field, keep playing good cricket. That will attract the top nations and other nations to play a lot more cricket.”
(This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)
