The end of a 30-year friendship between Faf du Plessis and AB de Villiers could be part of the collateral damage of SA's imploding World Cup campaign.
A slew of player retirements and the severing of other ties will likely follow what is shaping up as the team's worst performance in the global showpiece.
For the first time in eight World Cups, SA have lost three matches consecutively. They have to reel off victories in all six of their remaining games just to retain a serious chance of reaching the semifinals.
They have lurched from one injury crisis to another. This week fast bowler Dale Steyn left without bowling a ball in anger.
Looming in the distance is the deteriorating relationship between the players and administrators. An early grumble was heard on May 18 when, the Sunday Times has learnt, Cricket SA instructed the team to cancel training to have breakfast with then sport minister Tokozile Xasa.
CSA has put coach Ottis Gibson on notice that he will be out of a job if he doesn't win the trophy. Mohammed Moosajee, the team's manager since May 2008 and the team doctor since 2003, will be out of contract after the Cricket World Cup.
The South African Cricketers' Association has launched legal action over CSA's plan to restructure the domestic game, which is part of the officials' attempts to staunch losses. They told parliament in October that these losses could amount to R654m by 2022.
The saddest aspect of the downward spiral in the game in SA is that two men who have called each other friends since they met as boys at primary school are now, the Sunday Times understands, on poor terms.
The best a mutual friend could offer when asked whether Du Plessis and De Villiers had fallen out permanently was, "I hope not".
Growing up, De Villiers was always the star player and Du Plessis the canny captain.
De Villiers's career leapt forward after he made his debut for SA in a Test against England in Port Elizabeth in December 2004. Du Plessis, five months De Villiers's senior, had to wait seven more years before he first pulled on a South African shirt.
By then, De Villiers was established in the team and heir apparent to skipper Graeme Smith.
When De Villiers became captain, Du Plessis played under him in 90 games. Du Plessis now holds that office, and captained De Villiers 34 times - and that could be the root of the tension between them.
"AB really likes to be the centre of attention," said a source who knows both. "Faf then also became loved in SA as our new captain. Not sure 'Abbas' [De Villiers] liked that. There's a wrong perception that they are close. Maybe they were a couple of years ago, but they haven't been for a while."
That weakened connection would have been strained further this week when it emerged that De Villiers - whose retirement from the international game last May shocked the cricket world - was open to making a comeback.
The original version was that the selectors had rejected De Villiers's offer. Then it was claimed that De Villiers had voiced his desire shortly before SA named their World Cup team.
The Sunday Times has been told that De Villiers was given assurances when he retired that "the door would be open" should he wish to return.
He heard nothing on the matter from CSA, and in a casual conversation with as yet unnamed figures during the first week of this year's Indian Premier League, which started on March 23, exactly 10 months after he retired, he said he remained amenable to resurrecting his international career.
De Villiers did not, sources say, make a direct request to play for SA again. But CSA quoted its selection convener Linda Zondi as saying: "For Faf du Plessis and Ottis Gibson to share AB's desire to be included in the squad on the day we announced our World Cup squad on April 18 was a shock to all of us."
A CSA spokesperson then clarified that "at no point did Ottis and Faf want AB in the team. They simply relayed the message to Linda".
In any event, De Villiers was by then ineligible. As Zondi said: "We made it clear [to De Villiers] that he would have to play during the home tours against Sri Lanka and Pakistan [in January and March] to be considered for selection; instead he signed to play in the Pakistan and Bangladesh Premier Leagues [from January to March]."
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