Temba Bavuma and Rassie van der Dussen are both injury concerns for the Proteas ahead of the T20I series against Pakistan, which gets under way in Johannesburg on Saturday.

The Proteas captain injured his hamstring while batting in the deciding ODI against Pakistan at SuperSport Park on Wednesday. Bavuma required treatment on the field before he was eventually dismissed as South Africa suffered a 28-run defeat and a 2-1 series loss to Pakistan.

Speaking after the match, Proteas head coach Mark Boucher confirmed that Bavuma was in some discomfort.

‘Temba’s quite a tough guy, so it’s always worrying when you see him hobbling around, and it looks like it’s only got worse in the change room the way he is walking.

‘I think he may have done something fairly bad, he seems to be in quite a bit of pain. It doesn’t look good, unfortunately. It doesn’t put us in a good position for the start of the [T20I] series, but these are the cards we’ve been dealt, so we will have to find a way,’ Boucher said.

Bavuma’s injury comes after fellow top-order batsman Rassie van der Dussen was ruled out of Wednesday’s clash with a left-quadriceps muscle strain.

Both batsmen has been in good form with the bat with against Babar Azam’s charges so far and, with the IPL players also unavailable, Boucher admits that his T20I squad has a lot of work to do before Saturday’s opener at the Wanderers.

‘We’ve got a lot to work on, some of the senior players need to start winning games for us. I know they are trying really hard, but that is the way it is. Our senior players need to stand up, in tough times, in pressure moments and unfortunately that hasn’t been happening as often as we want it to happen. They are aware of that and will keep trying.’

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