Image Credit- AFP
In spite of their talent, skill, experience, and hard
work, nine out of the fifteen players in South Africa’s men’s World Cup squad
will probably finish their international careers the same way they began:
without a trophy.
David Miller and Reeza Hendricks are only a few months
younger than Rassie van der Dussen, who is the oldest member of the team at 34.
Temba Bavuma, Tabraiz Shamsi, and Keshav Maharaj are 33 years old. Quinton de
Kock and Lizaad Williams are thirty-two, and Heinrich Klaasen is thirty-two.
When South Africa hosts the competition in 2027, none of those players should
be expected to be on the team.
De Kock has given up his bat and pads already.
Prior to the competition, he declared that he would be retiring from One-Day
Internationals the minute South Africa was eliminated from the World Cup
competition. That occurred on Thursday, when Australia defeated the other team
by three wickets with 16 balls remaining in the semifinal match.
The fact that no South African senior team has won a
World Cup makes this generation of players not particularly unique. However,
they distinguished themselves on Thursday by falling short against a squad that
performed better than they did. They did not spontaneously collapse as a number
of other South African teams had in comparable circumstances.
However, 23-year-old Gerald Coetzee and Marco Jansen,
who participated in their first World Cup, are also on the team. Kagiso Rabada
is 28, Lungi Ngidi and Andile Phehlukwayo are 27, and Aiden Markram is 29.
In what was, as he described in a press conference, an
utterly disappointed dressing room, how would Rob Walter, the father figure in
the locker room despite being on the younger side for a coach at 48, make sure
the positive aspects of Thursday’s performance were successfully transferred
from the senior to the more junior members of the squad?
“Thank goodness I don’t have to be Quinny’s
father figure anymore; that’s a bonus,” Walter joked. “If you think
about what we’ve created and experienced here together, World Cups are where
you spend a lot of time together. They’re different to bilateral series, and I
think if you ask everyone about their experiences I would hope that they say
that this was a memorable one.
“I’m excited. I think there’s huge scope for us
to grow as a team and to play even better than we have. And the majority of the
people who are going to be on their journey are still in that changing
room.”
South Africa surprised many by winning seven of their
nine league games and advancing to the semifinals, even though they weren’t
considered favourites. Compared to other teams in the competition, their
batting lineup amassed nine centuries. Keshav Maharaj topped the ODI bowling
rankings during the tournament, and Coetzee’s 20 wickets are the highest by any
South African bowler at a World Cup.
So while the old guard walk into the sunset, there is
hope that the new brigade pick up the pieces and become a better version which
can go further than their predecessors.