Former South African allrounder Shaun Pollock feels pressure is building on Temba Bavuma's captaincy despite the batter marshalling his team admirably in the ICC T20 World Cup here, and likened his poor form with the bat with Australia skipper Aaron Finch, who finally came up with a gritty half-century against Ireland on Monday to break a sequence of poor scores.
Pollock felt sympathetic for Bavuma, who was out for 10 opening the innings with Quinton de Kock against India but the skipper's bowling strategy was spot on as the 2007 champions were restricted to a below-par 133/9 an then the Proteas knocked off the winnings runs in 19.4 overs for a thrilling win.
"It's a shame, you feel for the guy (Bavuma). From a captaincy perspective, he is obviously manoeuvring his troops as best he possibly can, but there's not one captain in the world who doesn't like to lead from the front with regards to performance, and he hasn't been able to hit his straps," Pollock said on ICC Review on Tuesday.
"The pressure for him is no doubt building. He's an individual. He's a human being. He understands what he wants. To perform in that he hasn't managed to click as of yet, and he would love nothing better than to have a little match-winning 40 or 50 and to take his team over the line and win a couple of games," added Bavuma.
South Africa face Pakistan on Thursday, and their opponents will be keen to score a win following narrow losses to India and Zimbabwe in the Super 12 stage. Pollock believes South Africa's win against India will galvanise the team for upcoming matches.
"We're probably the best ones to validate that little small margins can have a big difference. And (against India), it was a case where small margins went for South Africa," he said. "And maybe the fact that the first game was rained out against Zimbabwe meant we got a rain encounter with the World Cup over early, and we can just have some good weather going forward."