Perennial chokers South Africa fall before the finish line in yet another promising World Cup campaign

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It has become almost expected to see South Africa get to the latter stages of a World Cup and bow out before lifting silverware - with a World Cup evading them for their cricketing entire history.

The one which will come to mind for most is 1999, when in the final game of Super Six stage, the Rainbow Nation set Australia 272. The Australians were four down when Steve Waugh came to the crease, and he should have been dismissed just past a half-century, but Herschelle Gibbs, celebrating a catch before he’d fully claimed it, threw it away.

“You’ve just dropped the World Cup” were the eternal words said to be uttered by Waugh, and while they never actually were, perhaps Gibbs did exactly that, as Australia chased down the total in the final over.

When the same sides met a few days later in the semi-finals, South Africa had one foot in the final, edging towards the target of 214, when they lost their last four wickets for 30 runs, including two run outs, and tied - Australia went through as a result of a better Super Six finishing position. Utter heartbreak for South Africa.

More recently, in the 2024 T20 World Cup, South Africa reached the final, and that was the only game they lost, losing early wickets consistently as the trend of them devastating sides changed for the worse and they had no answer for India.

And it’s a similar story in 2026. On the way to the semi-final, South Africa had not lost a single game. When batting first, they made big scores of 213, and scored 187 twice - few can argue that their top seven as a unit has been the best in the tournament, all having fired at one time or another.

So setting New Zealand just 169 was not the start they wanted to make to the semi-final, nor was it typical of South Africa’s World Cup this year. Signs of nerves from the off.

In the first two overs, Quinton de Kock and Ryan Rickelton came and went, and after captain Aiden Markram mounted a charge against New Zealand, he fell with the score on 55, before 22 runs later, both David Miller and Dewald Brevis went.

Any platform South Africa gave themselves, they burned of their own accord, all of the aforementioned batters being caught, largely trying to hit a bomb and failing to connect properly.

South Africa were out-thought and out-muscled by New Zealand. Were it not for Marco Jansen’s 55 not out, hauling his side from 77 for 5 to 166 for 8, this could have been an enormous choke, though it mattered little when New Zealand came to bat anyway.

A chase of 170 was not a daunting one, and Finn Allen and Tim Seifert saved one of their best partnerships for the semis, combining for 117 before the latter was dismissed on 58 from just 33, in only the 10th over.

Allen continued the devastating hitting he had been producing alongside Seifert, after moving to his half-century in 19 deliveries, he blasted his side into the World Cup final with the fastest century that has ever been scored in the T20 edition - 100 not out from 33 deliveries, as South Africa were downed inside 13 overs.

This has far too often been the story of South Africa’s World Cups. So close, but so far when it comes to crunch time. They are not a daunting side in the latter stages of the tournament, and Allen was entirely unmoved no matter what they threw at him, nailing eight sixes, almost equalling the 10 South Africa hit as a unit by himself.