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Temba Bavuma has revealed that Australians tried sledging them with the ‘chokers’ tag during the WTC final.
South Africa’s captain Temba Bavuma celebrates with the winner’s trophy. (AP Photo)
World Test Championship (WTC)-winning South African captain Temba Bavuma has revealed that the Australians tried sledging his team with the ‘chokers’ tag during the final at Lord’s on Saturday (June 14). He said one player from the Pat Cummins-led team tried to get into their head about a batting collapse, but his batting partner, Aiden Markram, countered that by asking the skipper to ‘lock in’ after every over.
South Africa needed 69 runs with eight wickets to spare on Day 4 to win the title, thanks to a brilliant 143-run partnership between Bavuma and Markram the previous night. Bavuma got out near the start of the day, but Markram stood steady and strung brief partnerships with Tristan Stubbs and David Bedingham. The latter and Kyle Verreynne finished the job in the extended first session.
“Playing against Australia is a bit different in the last couple of years,” Bavuma said after the match. “They’re not as vocal out on the field. They’re still aggressive through their body language, through obviously their skill, but there’s not a lot of chatter. Of course, the tag of us being chokers, that came about this morning. One of their players threw out the fact that we could lose our eight wickets in less than 60 runs. I definitely heard that. Aiden kept using the [words] lock in after every over, let’s keep locking in. Let’s give them nothing. So yeah, not a lot of chatter, just one or two things that were, that were said,” he added.
South Africa hadn’t won a major men’s ICC title since 1998, seeing several near-misses where their teams squandered match-winning positions in knockouts.
Markram, who won the Player of the Match award for his 136 (207) said it’s ‘quite a big thing’ for his team to get rid of the tag once and for all.
“It would be great to not have to hear it again, that’s for sure,” he said. “In terms of it motivating you, I mean, there’s always going to be external things that can motivate you, but it’s not your sole purpose for playing. To have got the job done and to literally have got the job done and to get rid of that is quite a big thing for this team.”
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