Proteas captain Temba Bavuma says he has focused on giving Kagiso Rabada the support he needs since the paceman failed a drugs test.
Rabada left IPL team the Gujarat Titans in April for “personal reasons”, before it emerged he was serving a one-month ban.
According to Rapport, the urine sample Rabada provided after MI Cape Town’s SA20 match against Durban’s Super Giants at Kingsmead on 21 January showed traces of benzoylecgonine (BZE), a metabolite of cocaine, and he declined the option of having his B sample tested.
“I am deeply sorry to all those that I have let down,” the 29-year-old said in a statement. “I will never take the privilege of playing cricket for granted. This privilege is much larger than me. It goes beyond my personal aspirations.”
After serving his suspension, Rabada returned to India for the remainder of the IPL and has been included in the Proteas’ squad for the World Test Championship final against Australia at Lord’s from 11-15 June.
“KG is a close friend and I have been supporting him as much as has been needed,” Bavuma told SportsBoom.co.za when asked about his teammate.
“From a captaincy point of view, I am happy with the [disciplinary] process and my focus is on the human being – making sure he gets the support he needs.
“My biggest concern for him personally is that he can deal with this and make sure he comes out of it as a better person. International sport is a tough place to be, you are constantly under the microscope and it’s about how you can escape.
“KG has accepted he made a mistake, now it’s about understanding what role he played in it, why did he find himself in that situation? Is there something underlying? If so, then we must deal with that. We saw how controversial he was in that Test series against Australia in South Africa in 2018. But we also know how that series ended [South Africa won 3-1].
“But our friendship comes first, and I will be a captain later. We need to understand the human behind this, the biggest thing is the human, and we need to give him support. A lot of people who have their own skeletons in the closet have been pointing fingers. Yes, we are role models, but we also have our own flaws. People shouldn’t be so quick to celebrate when we make mistakes.”
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Former Australia Test captain Tim Paine slammed the way Rabada’s positive drug test was handled.
“It stinks. I don’t like this use around personal issues, and it being used to hide stuff that is not a personal issue,” Paine told SEN Radio.
“If you have a professional sportsman that’s tested for recreational drugs during a tournament in which he is playing, that doesn’t fall under personal issues for me. That falls under you have broken your contract. That is not a personal issue, that is something that is happening in your personal life.”
Asked whether CSA should have revealed the real reason for Rabada leaving India last month, director of national teams and high performance Enoch Nkwe said the process was not in their hands but governed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) and the South African Institute for Drug-Free Sports (Saids).
“It’s important that we respected the process, which is not our responsibility. Saids drives that process, the same with Wada. So, there’s no frustration for us about when the news was revealed, it was always very clear to us what the timeline was.
“KG is in a good space, even though he feels that he let down the country. We gave him space to express himself, he came out and apologised and we forgave him, so there is no longer a cloud over him. At the end of the day, he is a human before he is a cricketer.
“My role is the bigger picture and there are always lessons we can take from this, as we work closely with the South African Cricketers’ Association [Saca]. We need to look internally at what we can do better because there is more and more pressure on the players and their well-being remains our priority. That’s something we don’t want to drop the ball on.”
Photo: Sydney Seshibedi/Gallo Images
