As England celebrate T20 World Cup win, underperforming teams begin inquests into what went wrong

Fortunately, the T20 World Cup was played last Sunday in Melbourne without interruption, much to the relief of the organizers. At the start of the tournament, Australia were favorites to win, narrowly followed by India and England. Pakistan and South Africa were the next-favored teams. Given the outcome, performance reviews are already underway.

In Cricket South Africa’s case, this is being undertaken with intensity. Its team has an unfortunate history of losing winning positions in World Cups. This year, victory over the Netherlands in the final group match would have carried a semifinal place. The subsequent shock loss meant elimination. Mindful of its history, the CSA is placing an emphasis on looking forward and not dwelling on the past, which may be just as well.

Between 2017 and August 2020, the CSA has had three CEOs, all of whom left in acrimonious circumstances. The middle appointee put in place an overhauled coaching system, with a team director. He was quickly replaced with a coach. Over the same time, there were four Test captains and four national men’s coaches, plus a failure to launch a T20 franchise competition. When one was launched in 2018, it had neither television rights nor sponsorship deals in place.

There has also been a shuffling of the pack in terms of the CSA’s director of cricket. The last change was in June 2022 and was followed by the decision of the coach to resign after the World Cup. Under such chaotic governance it is testament to the team and coaches that they have been able to focus on playing, achieving some notable victories along the way. Understandably, several senior players have opted out of some tournaments and it should not be so surprising that shock defeats happen on