KEVIN MCCALLUM: Finals glory remains a planet too far for Starship Proteas

Finals. The final frontier.

These are the voyages of the Starship Proteas. Their continuing mission: to explore strange new finals; to seek out new runs and new knock-out stages; to boldly go where no Protea has gone before.

The finals frontier. It is SA cricket’s undiscovered country, a step that is always just a little too high, a gap a tad too wide, a hope too desperate, an expectation too overwhelming.

On Tuesday, the Proteas came home to Cricket SA HQ in Melrose after the T20 World Cup final in Dubai. There was a red carpet, a brass band, dancing employees, a police escort, a press conference and more music.

Sune Luus looked tired and sported a rue, uncertain smile, looking a little bewildered by it all. Anneke Bosch, the star of the semifinal against Australia, wandered off the red carpet with Annerie Dercksen. Tazmin Brits looked at ease if a little frustrated at the memory of Sunday. 

Sunday. It followed the team like a cloud into the press conference, then to the braai outside and on to the bus as they were finally released to go home to their families and loved ones. It will take some time for that cloud to lift, for the pain to numb, the exasperation and confusion to fade away.

What went wrong? No-one could quite put their finger on it and that is perhaps the reason for the bewilderment, confusion and frustration. 

“Honestly, I really don’t know. We go to the tournament telling ourselves that we are in it to win it, but out of the blue something happens and even today we don’t know what it is,” said Nonkululeko Mlaba.

“I was nervous before the semifinal against Australia, but that was not the case against New Zealand and maybe that’s the reason we didn’t play to win in the final because I was not that nervous.

“Even now I am still asking myself how did we lose the final. But the most important thing is to focus on the positives rather than negatives. I did well for myself and for the team and I feel like we did really amazing even if we didn’t bring the trophy home. Maybe next year’s tournament will be our turn.” 

They’ll always have Australia. They will always have that semifinal. They will always have Bosch. They’ll always have that 96-run partnership between Bosch and Laura Wolvaardt. They always have that. Did that semifinal take more out of them than they may have realised? Was that their final? 

“It always feels like Australia is sort of that last hurdle that we need to get through to win a World Cup and now we’ve actually done that,” said Wolvaardt . “I don’t want to get too excited, we still have a big game to play.” 

For Brits, it was about stopping the juggernaut of Australian cricket and a dish served cold.

“The win over Australia was kind of revenge,” she said. “The question was asked in the team room, ‘do we see it as revenge?’ A lot of people said no, but in my head I think this is revenge. You know the Aussies are the best in everything. We had a clear plan of what we wanted to do against them. We didn’t just lightly walk over them. With Anneke’s massive performance there, we beat them in the 17th over.

“That was a massive leap. I wouldn’t say it took concentration away. I also would not say New Zealand was going to be a walkover. The belief was there. The belief was actually more because we already overcame that hurdle. Stick to basics. Some things just didn’t go our way at the end of the day.”

The Proteas played the same XI in every match, a decision came as the tournament unfolded. Wicketkeeper Mieke de Ridder, Ayanda Hlubi, Seshnie Naidu and Tumi Sekhukhune did not crack a game. It doesn’t seem fair for the four, but sport is both the fairest and unfairest of beasts. As it gives, so it takes away.

In 1572 Portugal poet Luís de Camões wrote his epic Os Lusíadas, to “celebrate the Portuguese nation and its discovery of the sea route to India by Vasco da Gama”. The line, “By oceans where none had ventured” is considered the origin of “to boldly go where no person has gone before”. 

That Da Gama fellow stopped in at the Cape of Good Hope on his way to India. Camões, according to the 1997 Landeg White translation, wrote, “those matchless heroes, who from Portugal’s far western shore, by oceans where none had ventured. Voyaged to Taprobana and beyond, enduring hazards and assaults such as drew on more than human prowess among far distant peoples to proclaim a New Age and win undying fame.”

To go boldly where no Protea has gone before. Beyond the finals frontier.