Can South Africa break most notorious drought in world cricket in T20 World Cup Final against India?

For so long the laughing stock of world cricket at major tournaments, this current low-profile South African team has the chance to surpass champion teams of the past and break its trophy drought.

Kagiso Rabada and his South African teammates have a chance to end cricket’s greatest hex. Picture: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images

When the South African team was stuck at the Trinidad international terminal for seven brutal hours on the way to its first World Cup final, it brought back memories of the humiliating airport advertisement that summed up its 25 years of abject pain.

It was back in 2003 when South Africa was hosting the World Cup and out to avenge its infamous semi-final tie to Australia four years earlier, and visitors arrived in Johannesburg to giant posters of Allan Donald in full flight, beside the slogan: “We promise early departures.”

The line became a laughing stock very quickly when the Proteas themselves became the biggest early departure in their own tournament.

It was one of countless banana skins South Africa has slipped on in the seven World Cup semi-final losses they have endured until the dam-busting triumph over Afghanistan in Trinidad which has set up a shot at one of the great sporting breakthroughs against India in the final on Saturday night AEST.

Perhaps being stuck at an airport for an entire day and not arriving to Barbados until the night – as unhelpful as it was for their preparation – might just be the omen that suggests this underrated South African team can be the ones to defy history and go all the way.

“If I told you how our travel has been the last couple of weeks you would be pretty shocked,” South African star David Miller said, as India were playing out their deliberately choreographed semi-final fixture against England before getting a red carpet charter flight straight into Barbados.

“It’s really been a monumental effort to really buy into where we are right now.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

It’s impossible for an Australian, where World Cup wins are just expected, to fully understand the stranglehold South Africa’s curse has held over those who have lived it.

For Ricky Ponting, Australia’s famous triumph over South Africa in the tied 1999 semi was the start of a run of three consecutive World Cup championships.

The infamous finish to the 1999 ODI World Cup semi final where South Africa lost to Australia.

For Lance Klusener – the South African batsman involved in the calamitous mix-up on the last ball – it was the moment his life changed forever, in a vastly different way.

“I must have said sorry to a thousand people in the years after that ’99 World Cup,” Klusener says.

“And it wasn’t for another couple of years after that, I realised it would never stop. I realised I would always have to say sorry.”

South Africa became so paralysed by its reputation as chokers, not even a mountaineer who had climbed Everest could teach them how to breathe when an SOS was sent to him to help.

“We had a guy come speak to us, Mike Horn who used to be a motivational speaker and he went to the top of seven of the highest peaks in the world without oxygen,” Shaun Pollock, the former Proteas captain and veteran of ’99, recalls.

“(Former South African coach) Gary Kirsten got him in to talk to the team. He always made reference to trying to get to the top. That if you’re a person who is trying to achieve that (reaching the top) and you’re exposed to a few attempts and you don’t get there, it becomes an obsession.”

South Africa went on to lose 7-70 in a semi-final against England and bomb out of the 2013 Champions Trophy, and coach Kirsten admitted afterwards “look, we choked.”

Dale Steyn is recognised as arguably the greatest fast bowler of his generation, yet he has felt imprisoned by the anguish of being dispatched by New Zealand’s Grant Elliott in the final over of South Africa’s other most scarring World Cup semi-final heartbreak, in 2015.

“It doesn’t go away. Semi-final losses, they hurt forever,” Steyn told this masthead.

“It was nine years ago, and yet there is not a day that goes by without thinking about cricket and when I think about cricket, it’s all the highs and lows that go with that word.

“So that 2015 semi, I drag it with me everywhere.”

But on Thursday morning in Trinidad, the curse was broken.

Steyn and Pollock were watching the final overs of South Africa’s history-making run-chase against Afghanistan, when TV producers ushered them into the commentary box to make sure they were on air to call the famous moment when the winning runs were hit.

Aiden Markram and Reeza Hendricks celebrate reaching the final. Picture: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images

Their colleagues say the normally composed and ice cool Pollock was noticeably agitated, and Steyn was not even trying to hide his emotion.

Even in retirement, Steyn felt like South Africa’s win over Afghanistan had vanquished his demons.

“It was just a massive release. I even said it when I got back to the hotel, it just feels so weird. We haven’t won. We haven’t won. But it feels like you’ve won because you’ve broken something. You finally feel we’ve broken through and that’s a win itself,” Steyn said.

“Yes, there’s a final still to be played but that moment there was almost as important as winning a trophy. There’s a big job to do, but that there was a huge thing.

“I can’t put my finger on it. I can’t put words to it but it certainly feels different.

“To get over that (semi-final) hurdle, I’ll feel differently going forward now which is great.”

Donald, the man who was run out by Damien Fleming in the frantic final play of that ’99 semi-final epic, wrote in his biography that the scars were deep and that, “I don’t know what it is, but something just goes through our heads now when we play Australia.”

Now he believes.

“I’ve just got a good feeling about them this time around,” Donald said.

“I truly think this time could be their time.”

Veteran South African journalist and commentator Neil Manthorp is adamant that if the Proteas go onto smash their curse and win the World Cup, they will have Australia to thank for flunking out of the tournament before the semi-finals.

That would be fitting in a way, given it was Australia who initiated the curse.

Adam Gilchrist wrote in his book that it wasn’t until the Australians returned to Edgbaston years later for the 2005 Ashes Test thriller, that the players realised listening to a jubilant England celebrate, how shattering it must have been for South Africa to be forced to endure the aftermath of what happened in ’99 through paper thin dressing room walls.

Ponting said it’s been obvious how much it has affected South Africa – even just in his commentary interactions with the likes of Pollock and Steyn – but believes this team is capable of banishing the curse once and for all.

“We all sensed it. Everyone has known about their struggles and they quite openly talk about it. The guys you work with quite openly talk about how they’ve never quite been good enough to get across the line and make it through to a final,” Ponting says.

“But I’ve actually felt a bit of change with them the last 12-18 months.

“I said I’d be surprised if the winner didn’t come out of India, England or Australia, but if someone was going to beat one of those teams it would be this team.

“(Smashing Afghanistan in the semi) was actually probably exactly what they needed.

“Just a nice, more chilled sort of game. Rather than big emotional high again of sneaking across the line in another close game.

“They can just chill a little bit. Still enjoy the moment for what it is. And that’s what they should do. Don’t shy away from what you’ve done. Understand what you’ve done. Understand what you’ve done, embrace the moment, take it all in, and get yourself prepared to play your best game in the final.

“That’s their challenge now. Leave the rest behind, worry about what they’ve got ahead of them.”

South African fans are hoping world cricket’s great drought is about to end. Picture: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images

In Pollock’s view, the South Africans should feel no pressure in this World Cup final against India, because they’ve already gone further than what any Proteas team before them has ever gone before.

The former SA captain does his best to articulate the magic ingredient that has propelled Aiden Markram’s men in 2024 – who have only narrowly avoided what would have been humiliating losses to Bangladesh, Netherlands and West Indies this tournament – past the hurdle that tripped up so many champion teams of the past.

“Because we’ve been in so many campaigns, we always looked and thought, what is it? What is the ingredient that you’re going to need to be able to do it?” Pollock says.

“I don’t know if there’s any magic you can prescribe. But all they’ve done is shown their ability to find a way, scrap and show some character. And if you look at some of the victories they’ve managed to pull off and you analyse them and you think, ‘well how did they manage to do it?’

“And I think that’s probably the trait that you need more than anything else. More than maybe the massive amount of talent. It’s just getting the job done, under a bit of pressure at that time.”

South African star Tabraiz Shamsi says while his team have not even discussed the baggage from the past, they are driven by a desire to win for their forbearers who never got the chance. For Dale Steyn, for Shaun Pollock, for Lance Klusener, for Allan Donald.

“This is not just for us,” Shamsi said.

“It’s for the people back home and for the players that have played before us.

“They’ve laid the foundation for the team to progress and it’s just our duty to take it one step forward.”

Originally published as Can South Africa break most notorious drought in world cricket in T20 World Cup Final against India?