World Cup qualification sorted, may the Proteas now be successful in new era

On Tuesday night it was confirmed that the Proteas had qualified for the 2023 50-over Cricket World Cup to be hosted in India later this year directly and would not have the ignominy of having to qualify through the play-offs.

Ireland, who were the only team left on the ICC Super League Standings that could catch the Proteas, saw their first ODI against Bangladesh washed out, which ended their slim hopes of automatic qualification as they needed to win the series 3-0 to move up into the automatic qualifying berths.

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Only the top seven teams on the World Super League standings, along with hosts India (who finished third) can qualify directly for the World Cup and the Proteas just edged in finishing in eighth place.

World Cup qualification

It was a bittersweet moment, because it is good that they would not have to negotiate the potential minefield of the play-offs, where just two out of the 10 teams competing in it will move on to the World Cup.

But it was very disappointing that they had to in the end rely on Ireland not winning their series to qualify.

The Proteas should be easily qualifying for the World Cup directly and the fact that they needed to win their final two Super League games against the Netherlands to lift them above Sri Lanka and the West Indies was disappointing.

Afghanistan, who finished seventh, and Bangladesh who are currently fourth, both qualified automatically ahead of the Proteas and they are teams that definitely shouldn’t be ahead of them on the pecking order.

It has, however, been a turbulent past few years for the Proteas and hopefully they can now move into a new era.

The controversial few years under former coach Mark Boucher came to an end, with the coaching duties now being split between Rob Walter (ODIs and T20Is) and Shukri Conrad (Tests).

The decision to forego their ODI series in Australia to make sure their best players participated in the SA20 also paid off, so with things looking up it will be interesting to see if the Proteas can continue to go from strength to strength.