From Langa to Lord's: After the historical victory, Temba Bavuma is hoping for more Test cricket

Prior to the Lord’s Test the odds on Proteas captain Temba Bavuma hitting the only six of the World Test Championship final would have been fairly long. 

But, then again, what would the odds have been of a young man hailing from Langa in the Western Cape leading the South African national cricket team to the Holy Grail at the Home of Cricket? 

I suspect significantly longer.

It's almost as if the geographical plates of world cricket have shifted this past week in St John’s Wood. 

But whether it was just a slight tremor or a full blown earthquake will be seen in the coming months. 

The World Test Champions are only home for a few days before they cross the border for the first time in more than a decade to face their northern African neighbours Zimbabwe in a two-match series. 

All the hubbub of Lord’s will be replaced by the near-silence of the Queens Park Oval in Bulawayo to remind the Proteas of their actual standing in the global cricket landscape. 

While there may be upcoming tours to Pakistan and India post Zimbabwe, the Proteas will not be able to celebrate their world champion status on the field with their fans at Newlands, Wanderers and Centurion until next year. 

“We want to play more Test cricket,” Bavuma said matter of factly after lifting the ICC golden mace.

“We want to play against the bigger nations. So I think this will go a long way in making us a lot more attractive, and also the so-called smaller nations.”

Bavuma feels this is the only way his team can measure up on a consistent basis to the great Proteas’ teams of the past that won series’ away in England, Australia and drew in India.

"We've said as a team we would like to judge ourselves after three or four years,” the skipper said. 

"We would like to emulate what (former captain) Graeme (Smith) and his team did.”

Current batting coach Ashwell Prince was part of that exalted company when he shored up the middle-order in years gone by, and fully supports Bavuma’s plea for the Proteas to play more Tests. 

“I can promise you now that we'd love to play against everybody more often, especially if there's some big money series so that we can also make some money,” Prince said.

Equally, Proteas head coach Shukri Conrad stated that the Lord’s victory has emphatically shown that his team can go toe-to-toe with anyone of the “Big Three”.

“Arguably the best side in the world. Yeah, we've just beaten them. Maybe they've lost to one big nation in the big four,” Conrad said. 

“We play whatever is put in front of us. There's a lot of things we'd like that we can't get. So we play the cards we dealt with"