South Africa's final countdown drags on

Another one. How many more before South Africa win a white-ball final? Sunday's women's World Cup showdown at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai, where India won by 52 runs, is the fifth ODI or T20I tournament decider South Africa have reached in less than three years. They have lost all of them.

Some of those disappointments have been easier to accept than others. Getting to the women's T20 World Cup final - against Australia at Newlands in February 2023 - was a triumph in itself. It marked the first time a senior team from the country had made it that far, and they gave almost as good as they got before going down by 19 runs. To get that close hurt.

The seven-run loss to India in the men's T20 World Cup final in Barbados in June 2024 was even more painful. As was being beaten by 32 runs in the women's T20 World Cup showdown in Dubai in October 2024 - mostly because the opposition, New Zealand, had seemed there for the taking.

Besides, the South Africans weren't supposed to be there. They weren't among the fancied side before the tournament, an opinion they lived up to by being rolled for 69 in their first game, against. But then they reeled off five consecutive wins before thrashing the English by 125 runs in their semifinal.

Mandla Mashimbyi told a press conference after the final that " ... nobody gave us a chance; we gave ourselves a chance". So he was, publicly, anyway, satisfied: "It was a special campaign. We played some good cricket, we showed character. We were learning on the job and we showed that we were able to grow and get to the final. It wasn't to be, but I'm really proud of these girls. A lot of good things are going to happen for this team."

He hoped that what his team had done would bring change: "People are going to look at cricket differently now. When you do what we did, in the manner in which we did it, a lot of girls will be inspired to make cricket their career."

Mashimbyi is correct. The entire project of South African cricket is healthier than it has ever been in all sorts of ways. Here's one measure: after readmission in 1991 it took 32 years - longer than South Africa has been moving towards democracy - to reach a senior World Cup final. And here we are with a clutch of them inside three years.

But dark thoughts around Sunday's events will swirl for days yet. What might have happened had Anneke Bosch not dropped a straightforward chance at deep midwicket in the 21st over? India were 114/1 and Shafali Verma was 56 not out on her way to 87. Shafali and Jemimah Rodrigues had shared just 10 of a run-a-ball stand that would top out at 62. They would hammer their remaining runs together off 40 balls. Spilled chances are infectious - the South Africans put down another three catches.

What might have happened had Tazmin Brits not run an extra, unnecessary 103 centimetres to try to make her ground in the 10th over of South Africa's attempt to reel in India's 298/7? Laura Wolvaardt and Brits had taken their opening stand to 51 - their ninth half-century partnership this year - when Brits worked Renuka Singh's slower delivery to midwicket. Amanjot Kaur scurried after the ball, gathered, and threw down the stumps at the non-striker's end with Brits short of safety. Had she not veered her run so far sideways that she crossed the crease on the far side of the pitch next to the match surface, Brits probably would have survived.

If and buts. Coulda, woulda, shoulda. None of that matters now. India won their first women's World Cup fair, square and convincingly. Maybe that's what this is about. Could it be that the South Africans have been unfortunate enough to emerge as a consistent and legitimate white-ball threat just as India have found ways to convert their immense money and power in the global game into repeated success on the field?

In the 2010s, India's sole senior success came in the 2011 men's World Cup. They have doubled that tally in the 2020s. Who would bet against them adding significantly to their trophy haul before the decade is out? And who would argue that the South Africans won't feel the pain of losing a final to India again, considering it's happened three times from the 2024 men's T20 World Cup to Sunday?

Cricket in South Africa is tiny compared to in India, not least because there are almost 23 times as many Indians as there are South Africans. And because South Africa cannot match the resources and passion poured into the game in India.

Yet these pesky pipsqueaks from the sharp tip of Africa refuse to go quietly, much less go away. There is a patience peculiar to South Africans. We waited 342 years to be able to elect our leaders ourselves. Thirty years after we first did that, we're still waiting for something like equality. A mere 981 days cover the five failed finals. That's a blink of an eye - which remains firmly on the prize.

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