South Africa will face off against Australia from Wednesday
South Africa have been waiting for an ICC trophy for 27 years. They had won the 1998 inaugural Champions Trophy in Bangladesh and the very next year they tragically ended up in a tied semifinal against Australia in an absolute thriller.
The run-out of Allan Donald in the final over left scars on the Proteas’ psyche that never seem to be healing. They lost the semifinal of the 2002 Champions Trophy against India, which was followed by multiple exits from the group stages.
It took a generation of talented players for them to reach the semifinals in the 2015 ODI World Cup but were trounced by a rampaging Daryl Mitchell and New Zealand in that match.
After that heartbreak, they reached the 2023 ODI World Cup semifinal, but lost to Australia. They finally broke the last-four curse in 2024 by beating first-timers Afghanistan in the semis, but lost the summit clash to India in agonising fashion.
They were unable to cross the semis stage in the Champions Trophy 2025 but had managed to book a final berth in the World Test Championship 2023-25 by that time.
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However, the year 2025 has been a pedigree-altering period for teams waiting for a trophy. In football, clubs like Paris Saint-Germain, Crystal Palace, Bologna, Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle United ended their trophy drought while Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) finally went all the way and lifted the Indian Premier League (IPL) title. In Australia, Hobart Hurricanes had also won their first ever Big Bash League (BBL) title after 15 years of waiting.
South African opener Aiden Markram felt that the team is aware of the new trend but didn’t discuss much about it between themselves.
However, he said they had talked about burying the past disappointments ahead of the WTC Final beginning on Wednesday at the Lord’s.
“This team is a bit different. The few of us that have been a part of previous events that didn’t go our way have dealt with it, have obviously chatted to each other and made sure we’ve buried it nicely and taken some good lessons from it. But besides from that now, it’s more about the excitement of having another opportunity to actually do the job. So that’s pretty much where the mind is at the moment,” Markram told reporters ahead of the final.
He felt that South Africa, having played multiple two-game series, will help them against Australia.
“A lot of our series have been two-game series, so in order to win, you can’t start slow. That’s helped us along the way. We know the importance of starting well, trying to get ahead of the game early and how important each session is going to be. There’s no second dip at it. We have to make sure we hit the ground running and are nice and sharp come day one,” he said.
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