CAPE TOWN - Perception wields such power, and it is why perception must always be crushed by fact.
The fact in this matter, aimed as a hammer blow to the temple of perception, is Temba Bavuma’s ODI record.
The South African captain, just 13 innings and 14 matches into his international white-ball career, scores 50 plus every third time he walks to the crease and converts a start into a century every six times he takes guard.
That is some record.
Bavuma averages 55.36 at a strike rate of 85.65.
Those are some powerful numbers.
Even more powerful are the ODI numbers of Rassie van der Dussen. He has played 30 matches for the Proteas, and gone past 50 on 11 occasions. His average, albeit boosted by eight not outs, is a remarkable 73.62 at a strike rate of 89.37.
Bavuma and Van der Dussen rescued the Proteas in the first ODI versus India.
Yet, so many seemed surprised that Bavuma and Van der Dussen would succeed and the same seemed surprised that Aiden Markram failed.
Perception… it is an evil and a bloody powerful one.
Bavuma, whenever asked to perform in ODI’s, has done the business. Ditto Van der Dussen.
Unfortunately, Markram, so highly regarded, hasn’t quite got there yet and the yet spans 30 matches over six years. Bavuma has just got to 14 after making his ODI debut seven years ago.
Go figure that one.
Markram averages 27.32 but the believers continue to believe.
The Bavuma haters continue to hate on social media and some even managed to find fault with his 113 against India in Paarl.
A week ago, I wrote a piece about subliminal prejudice in South African cricket and no sooner had it been published, a former Sunday Times sports editor Colin Bryden tweeted for people to ignore my piece as just being ‘click bait’. He announced, in glowing prose, that the current Proteas team was nothing but a united one.
Bryden is white and part of that established old school privilege that for way too long influenced the narrative of an all-empowering white South African cricket landscape. He belongs in the past, along with everything despicable about South Africa’s exclusively white national selection policy.
Bryden, and there was no surprise there, failed to recognis the essence of the piece, which is that white privilege is so entrenched in South African cricket that whenever it rears its head, it needs to be challenged.
Call it a form of education as opposed to admonishment or judgement.
There is still such racial bias and prejudice and, in Bavuma’s case, such hatred. It must always be challenged.
Springboks captain Siya Kolisi endured a similar battle. Kolisi’s haters had to finally concede that he could play and that he could lead. It took him to win a World Cup and a British & Irish Lions series.
Unfortunately it may be that Bavuma will also only ever get acknowledgement for his ability to play cricket if the Proteas win the World Cup.
For now, all Bavuma can do is strike another blow to prejudice each time he performs, and he is doing just this, both as a Test middle order batter and as the ODI captain and top order batter.
SA Cricket Magazine columnist Ryan Verde, among the most insightful of sports writers, unpacked the Bavuma perception versus fact discussion and concluded that Bavuma needs to be bad for his haters for perception to triumph, but the facts are that he simply has just been good.
“Career-defining knock makes Bavuma, breaks haters’ hearts,” was the headline to Vrede’s most recent column, in which he wrote that Bavuma may be “small in stature but would walk into the change room as a giant in the eyes of the men he leads”.
He also wrote that Bavuma, through consistent excellence, was a reference point for gifted black batters to aspire to.
Amen Ryan.
Amen, brother, and Amen to those who challenge perception with unemotional fact and how terribly sad for those who ignore fact but delight in perception to justify their prejudice.
In an article I wrote for Independent Media’s sister publication, I picked my five sporting wishes for the year. One was for Bavuma to score more international hundreds.
Amen to that.
Cape Times