Frank Conrad scoffs at suggestion Bavuma needed chat after pair: 'It happens, deal with it'

It's a false start, deal with it.

In a nutshell, that was Shukri Conrad's typically frank and forthright response to whether the Proteas red-ball coach had a conversation with Temba Bavuma following his ignominious but hardly freakish pair on Test captaincy debut last week.

South Africa's diminutive skipper became the fourth player in history to befall that fate.

Yet Conrad, very reasonably, initially asked whether the enquiry was made to him simply because it's Bavuma. 

"Would the same question be asked if it were another player," he interrogated, ahead of Wednesday's start to the second Test against the West Indies at the Wanderers.

"Yes? I don't know why. Players get pairs.

"I'd hate to think we're having this debate because it's Temba and because of the spotlight that's been on him on the past couple months."

The exchange highlights the pressures Bavuma, even unwittingly, has to deal with, especially after he took an extended break from the game in the aftermath of a chastening ICC T20 World Cup campaign failure in Australia last year.

Then again, the South African cricketing public probably would've been discerning enough to ask the same question had it been Dean Elgar, Bavuma's predecessor, walking away with two ducks, particularly after finishing the Test tour of Australia with a series average of 9.66.

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Regardless, Conrad argues it could've happened to anyone and, more pertinently, Bavuma - as he stated himself after the 87-run victory in Centurion - simply has to bounce back. 

"[It's ironic given the previous attention] that he gets a pair on his Test captaincy debut," said the Proteas mentor.

"He was bowled two good nuts (by