South Africa captain Temba Bavuma said the massive, joyous welcome his team received when returning home on Wednesday from their World Test Championship final triumph was a sign of how special the achievement was. Bavuma and his team-mates were greeted by several thousand supporters when they landed in Johannesburg following a five-wicket win over Australia in the final at Lord’s last weekend. The win gave South Africa their first International Cricket Council title since 1998. They have suffered many agonising near-misses in knockout games since.
“It was quite overwhelming and I have not seen such a lot of people at the airport before,” Bavuma said at Cricket South Africa headquarters, where they were given an official welcome.
“It’s quite different to when we came home from the last (Twenty20) World Cup. I guess we have not really realised what we have done until you see that emotion.
“And to have done it in a proper South African way — it was not simple nor easy — shows something unique to this group and that is that we embrace everything of what it means to be South African.
“From a team perspective, we would like to leave a legacy behind and start inspiring and encouraging other teams to go and win trophies.
“Hopefully this is the start of a lot of trophies. We don’t have a big legacy yet, but we can speak again in two or three years time when we have started a culture of winning trophies.”
