South Africa declared the Test team that will play the upcoming two-match Test series against Zimbabwe, and the team will be without Temba Bavuma. Due to the wtc-winning captain Temba Bavuma sitting out of the series, Keshav Maharaj has been made the new South Africa test captain in their next outing, which is scheduled to commence on June 28.
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Proteas Men’s Test captain Temba Bavuma has been ruled out of the upcoming two-match Test series against Zimbabwe due to a left hamstring strain.
— Proteas Men (@ProteasMenCSA) June 20, 2025
Bavuma sustained the injury while batting during South Africa’s second innings on day three of the ICC World Test Championship Final… pic.twitter.com/MW9dXrA4r2
Keshav Maharaj To Lead South Africa
Bavuma has been benched by a hamstring strain, which he is yet to recover from. He suffered the injury in the WTC 2023-2025 final against Australia last week. The captain will require some other scans in order to determine how bad the strain is and come up with a period which the captain can be back in the field playing cricket.
The incident happened when Bavuma had been batting during the third day of the WTC final. After finishing a single, he pulled out followed by treatment on the field but still he kept batting until the tea break and at the end he was not allowed to continue his batting.
Showing a goal to ease the workloads on players, the team that has been chosen to play in the Zimbabwe series comprises five uncapped players. It is a well-calculated decision where multiple important all-format players, including Aiden Markram and Kagiso Rabada, get to have a rest. There is also the case of fast bowler Lungi Ngidi, who will not be able to play much because he will only feature in the second test of the series.
Against medical advice, chances are that Temba Bavuma would have collapsed the moment he got injured in an actual situation of the game, but he did not. He stated that the move was informed by the fact that he did not want to be ruled out of the race. Through discussions with Markram, an agreement was made to tone down his running between the wickets. This enabled Bavuma to continue his innings and see South Africa to victory with a score of 66, since they won by five wickets.
