To regain our faith at World Cups, SA teams must win like the Boks

Of course, we can always find reasons and excuses to defend them when they don’t perform, but it feels like we would have to launch a group search to find much remaining faith in our national teams in every code outside of rugby.

It’s not that our national squads are useless. Far from it – they have long lists of achievements which have gone down in South African sporting history – but in most codes, we have a habit of crumbling under pressure.

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While the Springboks have been superb at the highest level, their three World Cup titles remain all we’ve got in the country’s most popular codes.

Despite making regular appearances in the semifinals in both the ODI and T20 formats, neither the Proteas men’s or women’s teams have reached the final of a World Cup tournament.

Similarly, while the national netball side has previously earned two medals at the World Cup, the Proteas haven’t stepped on the podium in nearly two decades and they have never lifted the trophy.

On the football pitch, Bafana Bafana won the Africa Cup of Nations back in 1996, but they haven’t even qualified for the World Cup since we hosted it in 2010, and while Banyana Banyana are the reigning Africa Women’s Cup of Nations champions, they still have a lot of work to do if they want to progress beyond the opening round of next year’s World Cup in only their second appearance at the global spectacle.

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Even on the rugby pitch, the celebrated Blitzboks have won the World Sevens Series four times, but they have never emerged victorious in eight attempts at the Sevens World Cup.

These stats don’t read well for local sports fans, and the repeated struggles to break through against the best in the world has perhaps taught us to be more cynical than we are optimistic.

Facts are facts

And who can blame us if that is our general view? Stats are stats and facts are facts.

But the other side of this reality is that it can change, and perhaps the team best suited to flipping the narrative is the men’s cricket squad.

Our most successful national side after the Springboks, the Proteas have the quality and the experience to give it a real go once again when they open their campaign at the T20 World Cup in Australia next week.

If we don’t raise our hopes too high in advance, we probably have enough reason, but if they can finally push through and win gold, we’ll no doubt be willing to show more nationwide support ahead of major tournaments in future.

A trophy will go a long way in regaining the trust of South African fans by proving that, in terms of world champion teams, it’s not all about the Boks.