David Bedingham divides his Test career into two sections: the first five and the next 11. He had scores of 56, 87 and 110 in eight innings in the first five. Since then he has had highs of 59 and 82 in 20 trips to the crease.<\/p>\n
That translates into 376 runs at 47.00 in his first eight innings, and 547 at 32.18 in the next 20. Why the difference?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I started playing Test cricket [against India in Centurion in December 2023] it was a bonus because I didn\u2019t really think it would happen,\u201d Bedingham told a press conference on Friday (October 16). \u201cAnd then, after my first five Tests, in which I did pretty well, I put myself under loads of pressure and I had a down year. Then, in this county season with Durham, I worked on loads of things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bedingham scored five centuries among his 1,029 runs at 73.50 in 16 championship innings for the second-division side. He was fourth among the run-scorers and second in the averages, which was good enough for Durham to extend his contract for a season.<\/p>\n
In 2025 he scored 333 runs at 30.27 with no hundreds in 11 championship innings for Durham. Why the difference this year?<\/p>\n
\u201cMentally I\u2019m happy to be playing for my country again. Whatever happens, happens. I think that\u2019s when I play my best; be a free spirit and enjoy it rather than think, \u2018I need a score, I need a score\u2019, because whatever\u2019s meant to be will be.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my first five Tests I felt free. I wasn\u2019t thinking about my technique at all. You could just see ball, hit ball. And then I started thinking about my technique, and about what you guys [the press] say, and struggled.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I had a good summer at Durham. Maybe I was more confident than last year. But at the end of the day it\u2019s just cricket. I know it\u2019s our job, but there are a lot bigger issues in South Africa and the world. So hopefully I just enjoy it.\u201d<\/p>\n
All of which is doubtless true. But so\u2019s this \u2014 all of Bedingham\u2019s innings for Durham this year were at No. 4. Last year he had nine at No. 4 and the other two at No. 6 and No. 8.<\/p>\n
Similarly, all eight of his innings in his first five Tests were at No. 5. Since then he has batted at Nos. 3, 4, 5 and 6, as well as opened once. Did being moved around the order have a negative impact on his game?<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re at No. 3 there are usually three slips and a gully, so there\u2019s more chance to score. At No. 5 it\u2019s different. There might be two slips and a fielder in the covers. But I don\u2019t change much. I don’t think about it too much. There are different challenges but I\u2019m up for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bedingham spoke at St George\u2019s Park, where the second Test against Australia starts on Sunday. South Africa are under pressure to keep the series alive in the wake of Australia winning the first match, at Kingsmead, by 214 runs on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
South Africa reduced Australia to 124\/6 but let them get away to a total of 390. Then they lost their top four \u2014 Ryan Rickelton, Aiden Markram, Temba Bavuma and Bedingham \u2014 with 88 runs scored and all 10 wickets for 200 to concede a lead of 106. Bedingham\u2019s 49 was the best effort in an innings in which six batters reached 30 without any of them making it to 50. Are the home side over those problems?<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s been lots of chat around it but the one thing we can do is try to bounce back,\u201d Bedingham said. \u201cThat\u2019s the only way we can show we\u2019re moved past it. Hopefully come the next Test we\u2019re ready and up for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s easier said than done considering the calibre of Australia\u2019s attack. They have three of the finest fast bowlers of the age in Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins, and Nathan Lyon is in the same level as a spinner.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn first-class cricket you face a decent bowler and then there’s maybe another decent one. Then you cash in with the third or fourth bowlers. But here you get through six balls of Cummins and then you look up and it\u2019s like, \u2018Oh, here comes Starc\u2019. You get through that spell and it\u2019s like, \u201cFlip. It\u2019s Hazlewood. And Lyon.\u2019 They\u2019re machines, but everyone gets tired eventually. Hopefully \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Bedingham said he had discussed taking on the Aussies with friends. What was their advice?<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of them are club players, so they all said reverse sweep, smack him across the line, that type of stuff. So there wasn\u2019t a lot of thought from them.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it will always be tough against [Australia\u2019s bowlers]. It\u2019s just about how we can bat for longer. Six of our batters got to 30 in Durban. The big difference was that [Matt] Renshaw got 190 and 82.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bedingham batted for 80 minutes for his 46 in the second innings at Kingsmead in South Africa\u2019s bid to save the match. He shared 66 with Aiden Markram, who also put on 69 with Wiaan Mulder. Markram was at the crease for two minutes short of six hours and faced 237 balls before he was ninth out for 75.<\/p>\n
He will thus be central to South Africa\u2019s cause at St George\u2019s Park. So his absence from Friday\u2019s training session was conspicuous. Team management said he was attending to a personal matter and would rejoin the squad on Friday evening. Bedingham, and the rest of the dressing room, will be relieved to have him back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Bedingham divides his Test career into two sections: the first five and the next 11. He had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":805333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[47816,87479,428,262751,1721,264351,4247,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-805332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-47816","tag-2nd-test","tag-australia","tag-australia-tour-of-south-africa","tag-cricket","tag-david-bedingham","tag-south-africa","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/805333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}