OPINION: Is it okay for Brevis to be given free rein to have a swing?

Do we just accept the exuberance of youth of an ultra-talented, big-hitting batter or do we shorten his leash and insist he start batting with a little less freedom for the sake of the team?

These are the questions the Proteas selectors should be asking about 22-year-old sensation Dewald Brevis.

Now if Brevis was purely a T20 batter, then maybe the answer would be simpler.

But the reality is he is just too good to be only a smash-and-grab cricketer with a single gear.

He is being groomed into a player that will play a big role in all forms of the game for a long time to come.

So maybe the batting coaches need to start teaching him some restraint when it comes to Test cricket, but when it comes to the shorter formats, let the youngster do what he does best.

Yes, in the T20 arena, one good batting innings can win you a game, but this is a team sport at the end of the day, so one failed innings shouldn’t lose you a game.

Throwing away his wicket

This past Tuesday, for example, Brevis came in a No 4 for the Proteas in the first T20 against Pakistan, faced nine balls, hit one massive six and was then bowled by a delivery that really shouldn’t be getting a quality batter out.

Although we really want to see Brevis smash big scores in every game, the game of cricket is just not that simple.

And with a strike rate of 192 in 13 innings and an average of over 32, one would say these are pretty impressive numbers for a budding T20 career.

In the second game of the series against Pakistan on Friday, he might be back to his free-flowing best, smashing sixes at will to all parts of the ground, and his failure of a few days ago will be a thing of a past.

These are the things that make cricket such a beautiful game – you start from scratch every single time.

So as frustrating as it is to watch Brevis fail every now and then, the joy we experience in watching him in full flow is something that is second to none.