South Africa enter uncharted territory with an unfamiliar but long-overdue semi-final performance

1999 – a World Cup that might still haunt South Africa and their fans. They had everything, apart from a little composure when it mattered. With the game in their grasp and despite having star all-rounder Lance Klusener on strike, they could only tie their semi-final against Australia.

With Super Overs not a thing back then, Australia advanced because of a higher Super Six standing. A tournament of promise ended with a bag full of regrets and what-ifs for the Proteas, rather than the World Cup trophy.

1992. The moment South Africa realized how cruel mathematics can be. Especially when dovetailed with rain. A manageable equation morphed into an improbable one and later, an impossible one. The Proteas crashed out, without really knowing what hit them (apart from the rain, of course).

2007. The last time South Africa made the semi-final of a men’s World Cup (across formats) in the Caribbean. During that tournament, they looked like they had every base covered. Batting might to blow teams away, bowling strength to demolish oppositions, yet, they fell short at the penultimate hurdle, culminating in a display that was not befitting of one of the favourites.

2009. England. T20 World Cup (or World T20 as it was called back then). A similar cast. A match-winning cast on paper. Come the semi-final, though, things fell apart again. They could not chase 150 and despite being only five wickets down, lost by seven runs.

2014. Bangladesh. T20 World Cup. Dale Steyn bowling like the wind, Imran Tahir ripping through batting line-ups, and a batting complement comprising AB de Villiers, David Miller, Hashim Amla, and JP Duminy. In the semi-final, they came up against India and Virat Kohli and had no answers. Another opportunity withered, and another chance spurned.

2015. ODI World Cup. Arguably the best team in the world. Led by de Villiers, boasting the batting firepower that was the envy of other nations. The bowling was not bad either. Any attack with Kyle Abbott, Morne Morkel, Vernon Philander, and Steyn would be a handful.

The semi-final arrives, and in rain-soaked Auckland, South Africa freeze, losing to a Grant Elliot chasing masterclass and a Brendon McCullum blitz. South African men’s cricket, you could argue, took years to recover from that setback.

And it was only in 2023, post a 2022 T20 World Cup campaign where the Netherlands dumped them out, that it felt things were clicking. As fate would have it, the Proteas could not get past the semi-final stage at the 2023 ODI World Cup in India, although the fight shown against Australia was viewed as a possible harbinger of better and happier times.

That is how it panned out in Trinidad against Afghanistan.

There has been a myth (or a joke even) going around in the cricketing circuit that if you ever want to face South Africa, do it when there is something on the line. Preferably in a semi-final. Because that is when they usually crumble.

If you ask Afghanistan, they will, most likely, say they’d rather have faced anyone but South Africa. That is how good the Proteas were, and that is how much they turned up on the big day.

Losing the toss, in a sense, worked for Aiden Markram. It was eerily similar to what unfolded in their semi-final against Australia last year – the only difference being that South Africa won the toss and chose to bat first on a track that did all sorts at the start in Kolkata.

South Africa's bowlers were irresistible against Afghanistan

This time, with the ball, they did not err. Marco Jansen, despite bowling a string of wides, set the tone with the dismissal of Rahmanullah Gurbaz. An over later, he breezed through Gulbadin Naib’s defenses, which left the floor open to Kagiso Rabada, who then ripped the Afghanistan batting unit further into shreds.

Anrich Nortje then arrived and did what he does: meddle with the batters’ thought process because of just how fast he bowls. Azmatullah Omarzai was the first to have a rush of blood and Rashid Khan, despite trying his best to intimidate Nortje, lost his off-stump a few minutes later. In between, Tabraiz Shamsi picked up three wickets too, bamboozling the lower-order batters with his variations, dip, and zip off the surface.

What shone through in each of these spells was the clarity South Africa had. In years and World Cup semi-finals gone by, they have often been clouded in their judgment, as illustrated by their brain fades earlier in this piece.

Against Afghanistan, they read the conditions like the morning daily, attacked the stumps incessantly, and denied them any width, which as the game progressed, seemed the most suitable and viable run-scoring avenue. All while believing that their best ball would be enough. If they play to the best of their ability, they will outlast and outclass the opposition, even being able to obliterate the opposition the way they did.

They held their nerve and remained calm, which as Jansen alluded to in his post-match interview, is a trait Markram – who, by the way, has led South Africa to a World Cup title before (albeit in U-19 cricket) – specializes in.

If you were to define this Proteas display in two words, ruthless and clinical would be the adjectives that would fit the mold. But the biggest compliment that can be paid to the Proteas is that you’d have never known this was a team that continually flounders in semi-finals, had someone not mentioned it a million times in the build-up to the clash.

This looked and felt like an all-conquering side, that had smelt blood, was going for the kill and still retained equanimity. The sort of aura that perhaps only India – a team that South Africa might well face in Bridgetown on Saturday - have given off at this T20 World Cup. And that is perhaps the most glowing assessment of South Africa’s performance.

32 years, 18 attempts, several heartbreaks, rain-induced miscalculations, and countless allegations of not standing up when it mattered most – that is all it took for South Africa to make their first men’s World Cup final (across formats). But now that they are here, it feels like they were always destined to be.

In a men’s World Cup final. And aiming to become the first team ever to win the T20 World Cup without a blemish. A nation that had never managed to get to the final, is now striving to become a side that no country has ever been.

That, of course, might bring a different sort of pressure. Having overcome this particular semi-final hoodoo, though, producing an unfamiliar but long-overdue performance, South Africa might no longer feel pressure. The monkey is off their back, the memes will have to change, the narrative will have to be altered and a cricket World Cup final in a South African household will now be watched with a strong allegiance and bias.

This is, pretty much, uncharted territory then. But not undeserved. Everything they have done at this T20 World Cup was designed to culminate in an appearance in the summit clash, and now that they have it, they will not want to let it go.

The last time a male South African cricket team was in a World Cup final (U-19 World Cup in 2014), Rabada was in the side, breathing fire, and Kuldeep Yadav and Sanju Samson were in the Indian camp. And that team was led by…let’s leave this here. For the sake of the South African cricket fan.

The South African cricket fan who has endured years of hurt but will now watch the World Cup final, knowing that by the time it ends, he could be parading around Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, and Pretoria, shouting at the top of his/her voice and tangoing all night long.f