“Physically, I feel alright. Obviously not 100%,” he said in Kolkata. “So obviously this day [today] becomes important in terms of the decision about tomorrow [match day]. I’m quite confident but it’s not a unilateral decision that will be made.”
All we have to go on then, is what we’ve been told and what we have seen from Bavuma this week. After he strained his hamstring, he was not taken for a scan but had the weekend to rest. The squad had a day off on Saturday and travelled from Ahmedabad to Kolkata on Sunday. Questions on why he did not need a scan were unanswered.
They have since attended three training sessions, but both Monday’s and Wednesday’s were optional, and Bavuma was in attendance at all of them. On Monday, he did fitness drills and batted for more than an hour and team management said he was making “objective signs of improvement”. On Tuesday, he did more intense running drills including some sprinting, a fielding session with one-handed pick-up and throws, and batted again, with an emphasis on footwork. And today, after addressing the media, Bavuma did some hopping and stretching exercises, sideways running and more fielding before some shadow-batting on the pitch. ESPNcricinfo has confirmed that he did not do a fitness test.
What we don’t know is what, if anything, Bavuma still needs to do to be passed fit. Asked directly which boxes he still needed to tick today, Bavuma said: “I think it’s just using the rest day to continue with my rehab and I’ll be doing some fielding stuff. I can’t tell you medically, but I think for me, from a feeling point of view, that’s what I can attest to.”