Cricket South Africa believes that the Proteas are on the right track and will bring home some major International Cricket Council (ICC) silverware soon.
The governing body officially welcomed back some members of the South African team who flew the flag at the ICC’s Men’s T20 World Cup in the United States and the Caribbean.
The Proteas suffered a heartbreaking seven-run defeat to India in the final in Barbados last weekend.
The result of last month’s T20 World Cup final might not have gone the way that South African fans would have liked, but overall, the response has been a positive one.
The Proteas effectively removed two monkeys off their backs, shedding their choker tag and breaking the hoodoo of losing in a semi-final and the squad is left all the better for it.
“I am very optimistic about the future I think there are a lot of positives and negatives that transpired in this World Cup which is encouraging to see the growth in the team in such a short space of time just propels you and fuels to well to obviously get it right in the next opportunity when it does come about but very optimistic amongst the pain and hurt but it’s enough fuel to make us want to achieve something really special,” says Proteas bowler Keshav Maharaj.
The women’s team reached the final of the T20 World Cup on home soil in 2023, the men’s team progressed to the semi-final of the 50 over World Cup last year and then went on to contest their maiden World Cup final in Barbados last Saturday.
These are all feathers in the cap of the governing body, and they are confident that trophies will follow soon.
“There’s been quite a lot of work that has been done that builds toward these moments so definitely we are heading in the right direction and there’s still a lot of work that we need to do from a woman’s point of view the eye is always been on the 2025 world cup and from a man’s point of view 2027 this will definitely go a long way and give us a belief in the system that we can actually achieve greater things,” says Enoch Nkwe, CSA Director of Cricket.
The senior men’s team’s next big assignment on the world stage is the Champions Trophy or the mini-World Cup that takes place in Pakistan early next year. And a large part of that squad will be made up of the current crop of white ball players.
“Unless someone springs a surprise on me, I think for the most part we have a similar group of players it’s a 50-over format the makeup might change a little bit as far as 2027 goes that obviously a couple of years away. The guys are playing a hell of a lot of cricket at the moment yeah we believe the guys are invested in going and playing in a home World Cup is going to be a real spectacle for us, there’s a real hunger to be involved in it but our job is to make sure we are progressing the players among the fringes and getting them up to speed and making sure we got a squad that can do the job,” says Proteas coach Rob Walter.
Most members of the T20 World Cup squad are playing in the Major League Cricket in the United States or the Lanka Premier League in Sri Lanka and will only return to South Africa at a later stage.
