Heartbreaking moments for top teams in the 21st Century

#4 South Africa's exit from yet another World Event at Home, ICC WT20, 2007

Albie Morkel during his valiant knock

A lot has been said and documented about South Africa's infamous World Cup exit in 1999 and a rather bizarre one at home in 2003, where they miscalculated the D/L par score. South Africa added another painful memoir in their cricket history when they failed to enter the semi-finals of the inaugural WT20 in 2007 even after being the consistent team in the tournament.

South Africa went into the final Super Eight game against India unbeaten and were expected to prolong their run when they kept the Men in Blue to 3-33 in the first powerplay. Their hopes to make further inroads were defied by a resilient Rohit Sharma, who with his pristine cuts and backfoot pull gave a glimpse of what the future of Indian batting beheld. Sharma (50*) was an ably supported by skipper MS Dhoni (45), as the duo took India to a respectable 5-153 in 20 overs. The equation was simple for South Africa: they needed to win or at least score 126 runs to keep their run-rate ahead of New Zealand and subsequently knock the latter out of the competition and progress to the semi-finals along with India.

However, an incisive spell of seam and swing bowling by RP Singh and Shreesanth coupled with outstanding fielding ensured the Proteas achieved none of the two aforementioned requisites. South Africa, thanks to a valiant partnership of 69 between Mark Boucher (36) and Albie Morkel (36) hobbled to 9-116 and were painfully knocked out of the tournament.