LUKE ALFRED | More settled SA society lays path for country’s Golden Age of sport

Back in June, the Proteas travelled to Lord’s to play in the World Test Championship final against Australia. The pundits, myself included, expected it to be over in three days.

One of the ways to test the comparative strength of two sides is to ask who of the weaker side (South Africa) would make it in the stronger side (Australia) if a composite team were chosen. Well, Kagiso Rabada, a generational talent, could play for Australia, for sure.

But then it all begins to get wildly conjectural. Aiden Markram might sneak into a composite side, as might Keshav Maharaj and Marco Jansen. If taken on his form over the last two years, Temba Bavuma also has a case but, as far as the four names mentioned after Rabada’s are concerned, it’s a bit iffy. Is Bavuma a better player than Travis Head? Probably not.

But here’s the thing: finals are one-off events. They generate their own logic. Before the first day’s play was over, the Proteas had bowled Australia out for 212 and at close were 43 for four themselves. They nosedived to 138 all out on day 2 but hung on grimly to have the Baggy Greens eight wickets down at stumps.

They’d received some body blows, but they threw some crisp combinations back. The Test was utterly compelling. It was up for grabs.

It’s not necessary to rehearse what happened any further, we all know that on the fourth day South Africa won the match by five wickets. Markram scored 136 in the second innings, the satisfaction of which he will take with him to his grave. His skipper scored a beefy 66, an equally important knock.

Before the one-off Test at Lord’s, Proteas coach Shukri Conrad spent a “fascinating” day with Rassie Erasmus and the Springboks at their training camp. Afterwards Conrad spoke about “common threads”, noting that despite the different sports, the messages about playing for the badge, trusting the process and executing under pressure are identical. For Conrad, the Boks’ “Stronger Together” motto struck an inspirational chord.

The importance of the Springboks as trailblazers can’t be underestimated. Their generation of national pride and emotional energy is considerable. Sportsmen and women are as impressionable as the rest of us.

While the Boks inspired Conrad’s Proteas, the male Proteas surely inspired Laura Wolvaardt’s team. Get this. In October, in the Women’s World Cup in India, England bowled out South Africa for 69 in 20.4 overs of their allotted 50 in their opening match. It’s a scorecard that makes for miserable reading, as England wrapped up matters by 10 wickets.

Afterwards, South Africa brought themselves towards themselves. They beat New Zealand, Tazmin Brits scoring a rollicking century, and followed it with consecutive wins against India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Winning, they discovered, is addictive. And though they lost to Australia late on, they made the playoffs, playing England – who’d given them the earlier snotklap ― in the semifinal.

Racial spats are largely unheard-of nowadays. Quotas aren’t even discussed. And like the country at large, everyone is learning to get on. Long may it last

Here Wolvaardt played one of the great post-readmission knocks of South African cricket, period, in scoring 169 (in 143 balls) in South Africa’s imposing 319 for seven. How can we be so sure of the knock’s quality? Well, it wasn’t an innings in a vacuum, it won her team the game. England didn’t get close, and so South Africa were in the final against co-hosts India.

It didn’t go to plan in the final, as South Africa fell 52 runs short but it was a remarkable turnaround after the early England defeat. Conditions weren’t to the Proteas’ liking. Wickets were slow, fans partisan. To reach the final was astonishing.

Conditions weren’t to Banyana Banyana’s liking when they beat Morocco in front of 50,000 Moroccan fans in the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations final in 2022. And they certainly weren’t in anyone’s favour ― it was raining heavily ― when South Africa’s 4X400m men’s athletes were pipped to bronze in the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo in September, Wayde van Niekerk running the lap of his life.

When you think about it, the list of successes that makes this the Golden Age of South African sport is surprisingly long. Finally, after a wait of 23 years (if one discounts automatic qualification as hosts in 2010) Bafana Bafana under Ronwen Williams and Hugo Broos qualified for next year’s World Cup.

In a couple of weeks’ time an encounter in Morocco in the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) awaits, Bafana having reached the semi-finals of the competition last time round, ending with a 24-year best bronze medal.

Amajita won South Africa’s first U-20 Afcon this year, so there’s talent in the wings too. And let’s not forget the continental swagger of Mamelodi Sundowns; the Blitzboks and the Baby Boks, the current under-20 rugby world champions.

Why should success have bred success? The trailblazing Boks have certainly played their part. But so, too, has the fact that South Africa itself has entered a more settled, less rancorous age. Racial spats are largely unheard-of nowadays. Quotas aren’t even discussed. And like the country at large, everyone is learning to get on. Long may it last.