Temba Bavuma and Dean Elgar to lead South Africa's limited-overs and Test sides respectively

Cricket South Africa have announced Temba Bavuma and Dean Elgar as the new captain of the Proteas limited-overs and Test teams respectively. With this decision, Bavuma will become the first permanent black captain of any South African cricket team. This news comes as a little surprise after Quinton de Kock was named the captain of the team after the 2019 Cricket World Cup. 

Temba Bavuma will be taking over from De Kock, who was handed over the responsibility after Faf du Plessis had stood down from captaincy in early 2020. There has been an interesting turn in events as far as the captaincy of South Africa is concerned. De Kock was named the captain of the ODI and T20I format initially but had to be elevated soon. De Kock is currently on a mental health break.

After Du Plessis quit Test captaincy, De Kock was named the captain in the longest format as well because there wasn’t anyone available. That was a U-turn taken by Cricket South Africa, after its Director of Cricket, Graeme Smith had clearly said that De Kock would be their limited-overs captain only. However, De Kock’s Test captaincy was going to be short-lived, as it was a temporary solution to which the South Africa board leaned over. 

Bavuma is expected to lead South Africa into the T20 World Cup 2021

Bavuma’s appointment as the limited-overs captain is also surprising, considering the fact that he has just played six ODIs and eight T20Is. He wasn’t even in the frame of limited-overs XIs until early 2020. However, Bavuma has experience of leading and recently he captained Highveld Lions to a victory in the CSA T20 Challenge 2021, which was held in Durban.

Bavuma is expected to carry the South African team as the captain in the two back-to-back T20 World Cups, one of which will be played later this year in India. On the other hand, Dean Elgar’s elevation to Test captaincy was long due. He had been looked upon as du Plessis’ successor but surprisingly not picked to lead when Faf quit the role. 

He is an established member of the Proteas Test team having played important roles for the side over the past few years. The Test team has had underwhelming performances over the past couple of years, but with a new skipper in charge, they would hope to turnaround that.