A snapshot in time
Let's roll back the years and look at where these guys were in a single year.
Let's take a snapshot of where they were 11 years ago.
In 2013, Aiden Markram received a call that changed his life. After watching the 2012/13 edition of the Khaya Majola Week, Ray Jennings was not convinced he was looking at the full list of the country’s best young batters. He reached out to his contacts, asking around for overlooked talents and was told of Markram. After having a look at the young man, Jennings not only pissed off the CSA brass by selecting Markram, he also appointed him the team captain.
Just a few months earlier, Markram had packed his bags and was walking away from the game, following a bitter disappointment over being snubbed for the week, despite being peerless in his batting and run-scoring in 2012. It took a long and serious conversation with Pierre de Bruyn to change his mind.
That same year, 2013, Ottniel Baartman got his break. He was accepted into the South Western Districts Academy and played his first T20 match. He bowled two overs and took one wicket for 18 runs against Namibia.
He had been nervous through his spell. He wanted to impress so much that he didn't do what was good at often enough. This was his ticket out of an intimate relationship with hunger and desperation, so he tried too hard. Baartman had gone through his teenage years waiting for his cousin Douglas to finish his spell before he borrowed the latter's spikes to bowl his own spell at club cricket.
Baartman had been the best bowler in his street and then he became the best bowler at his school. He was so good affluent schools paid him to bowl for them. His mother put food on the table by doing char work, and sometimes there wasn't any work for her to do, which meant no food for Baartman and his sister. When that happened, they went to bed hungry and would receive their only meal, a sandwich and milk, at school. The money he earned from bowling for these schools helped more than a little bit.
He didn't know it then, but two years later, he would sign with the Knights and buy a house for his mother. His family's first brick-and-mortar home, after living in a corrugated iron and plastic shack all his life.
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After an unproductive spell, where he was underutilized, with Gauteng Strikers as he attempted to kick off his career, in 2013, Tabraiz Shamsi was KZN Inland's preferred red ball spinner. He was sleeping on the floor, rooming with Devon Conway, to whom he bowled innumerable deliveries. Shamsi didn't know it at the time, but Grant Morgan was about to place a call to Rob Walter at the Titans that would put him on the path to a T20 World Cup final in 11 years.
Morgan felt that Shamsi's talent was being wasted at KZN Inland. He could have kept the spinner and used him to win games, but he wanted the youngster to play at a level that suited his skills. It was a move that would change his life forever. His spin partner, Keshav Maharaj, was slightly overweight and only sparingly used in white ball cricket by the Dolphins. But that was about to change.
In the winter of 2013, Cuckfield Cricket Club signed Maharaj as their overseas player. Just before he boarded the flight to England, Lance Klusener, the then Dolphins coach, asked him to lose 5kgs over the next six weeks. The weight loss would improve his chances. Desperate for a starting place, Maharaj didn't just lose 5kgs, he shed 17.5kgs and returned a different player.
Kagiso Rabada had stopped breaking the windows at their home with mishit cover drives and was quickly establishing himself as a future Protea. He and Lungi Ngidi developed a mini-rivalry. They competed to see who could bowl faster and harvest more poles against schoolboy batting lineups. There is a wonderful story about the two of them from that period. Led by Rabada, St Stithians bowled out Hilton College for 90. Ngidi replied by decimating the St Stithians batting lineup to 90 for 8, and one Saints player had been rushed to the hospital, thanks to a Ngidi short ball.
At that year’s Khaya Majola Week, Rabada and Anrich Nortje ran through batting lineups. Nortje went on to represent the SA Schools side with distinction but was just out of range for the 2014 World Cup. However, Unlike Rabada and Ngidi, Nortje would have to wait for a few more years before he caught the eye of national selectors. For that to happen, he had to find a way to crank up his speed. Which he did in 2017.
2013 was the first year David Miller chalked multiple half-centuries for the Proteas in a single year. That is also the year he started bailing his side out of tricky situations. Against England at the Oval, Miller arrived at the crease with the Proteas struggling on 63/5. He scored an unbeaten 56 from 51 to give them a fighting chance. A few months later, he scored an unbeaten 85 off 72, a match-winning half-ton against Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka.
While Miller was playing these innings, Heinrich Klaasen was fresh out of university and trying to make a name for himself at the Titans. After a successful career with Tuks, Klaasen found himself stuck in the Northerns set-up, where the only thing that kept him in the side was his wicketkeeping. Their top order was so dominant he often came in to score a quick 10 or 15. That year, 2013, was also Quinton de Kock’s breakout year in international cricket. He scored his maiden ODI centuries, which were also his first international tons. Those first three hundreds in a space of six days, against India.
His opening partner at the 2024 T20 World Cup, Reeza Hendricks, was fighting for a place in the Knights’ first XI. He was competing for a spot with the experienced Loots Bosman, and the coaches often chose Bosman over the 23-year-old. When he got a chance, he chalked a few half-tons.
Marco Jansen and Tristan Stubbs were 13-year-olds. Jansen was yet to have the growth spurt that would make him one of the tallest cricketers around. Stubbs, on the other hand, was trying to convince his parents that his future lay in him attending Grey College, because he had seen their outstanding cricket facilities. Ryan Rickelton was doing for Stithians with the bat what Rabada was doing for them with the ball. When he was not doing so, he was spending countless hours in the nets.
Bjorn Fortuin made his FC debut for North West Dragons after finishing his spell with North West University. In his first match, he sent down four overs and conceded nine runs. That was his only outing for them that season. Gerald Coetzee was only 10 and had made the jump from the U9 F team to the U10 A team in a single season. He had made the U9 as an extra but proved himself worthy of his spot in the U10s.
"Each player has been on a different individual journey to get to this first final," Aiden Markram shared after the T20 World Cup final.
In June 2024, 11 years after 2013, this motley crew was expressing their pain in a variety of ways. Some openly shed tears, while others wore their heartache on their faces. As they had done after crashing out of the 2023 ODI World Cup semi-finals, they had each other’s support to rely on. They consoled each other while a significant section of their ‘support base’ called them names on social media.
After the medal ceremony, they were joined by their families, who did their best to comfort them. They were distraught because they lost to India in the final.
However, losing to India in the final is not all they did in this tournament. This is also the side that broke the multi-generational hex cast by Richie Benaud. This Proteas outfit ended a 32-year-old roll of nine dishonourable knockout matches at World Cups: Sydney in 1992, Karachi in 1996, Birmingham in 1999, St Lucia in 2007, Nottingham in 2009, Dhaka in 2011 and 2014, Auckland in 2015, and Kolkata in 2023.
They went where no other South African men’s side had ever gone before.
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Thanks for reading. Until next time… - CS