What a difference a year can make. Late last year, South Africa’s national cricket side, the Proteas, went to India as the world’s No 1 Test team. When they returned, that crown was falling, and a proud travelling record was no more.
Things didn’t get any easier as injuries to senior players, and loss of form and confidence, saw another series defeat over the festive season to England. Naturally, there was a chorus of discontent, and much of the criticism was fired at South Africa’s management staff, especially coach Russell Domingo.
His credentials were again called into question, and others who had played the game at the highest level were put forward as more viable options. Throughout the introspection, Domingo kept his counsel, while his players and captains voiced their support for a man whose value hadn’t diminished in the dressing room.
Public opinion is a by-product of our sports culture. At a time of great uncertainty with much of the world as we know it, our sports teams - and especially our national teams - become the barometers of sentiment, providing crumbs of comfort and hope or scraps of misery.
One only needs to look at the collective groan across the nation whenever the Springboks take the field these days. Every defeat is a dagger to the heart of those who look to that jersey for inspiration. Bafana Bafana were in the same place not that long ago.
As fate would have it, patriotic fans wearily turned to their good news on Saturday, as a quiet comfort to the extended winter of Allister Coetzee’s men. The Proteas were in that dark place, too, just a year ago.
That is the nature of sport and competition in general. The peaks are infinitely more memorable because of the valleys that we have to go through in between the successes. The struggles and bitter pain of India would have made the extended success against Australia that much sweeter.
South Africa’s cricketers didn’t suddenly become world beaters on their trip to the Antipodes, just as they didn’t wither into woeful players in India last year. The talent has always been there, but their confidence took a knock at some point.
Now, 2-0 up and looking for a historic clean sweep in Australia, that confidence has been restored, even though they have played much of the series without talismanic figures like AB de Villiers and Dale Steyn.
Other heroes have emerged into the global consciousness and, what’s more, South Africa have won with a team that fully represents the delicious diversity of this country.
The names of Rabada, Bavuma, De Kock and Maharaj have all become uncomfortably familiar to Australia, in their own backyard. Most of them arrived Down Under as first-timers, but they all leave with reputations hugely enhanced. So much for those who insist that success and transformation are uncomfortable bedfellows.
Much credit has been rightly given to stand-in captain Faf du Plessis, who has revelled in the extra responsibility. The serendipity of his promotion illustrates that perhaps the cricket gods do have a sense of humour.
Du Plessis has looked a natural to the job, and his team has eagerly followed his every word, trusting that he is steering the ship to a better place. The demeanour of Hashim Amla, the leader just a year ago, speaks volumes for the spirit that exists in the side. It takes maturity and respect for all these relationships to flourish, and Du Plessis’s relish for the role now gives the brains-trust a fresh complication.
These are good problems, a world away from the headaches of a year ago. Time is a great healer, indeed.
But, amid the changes, there have been other forms of leadership, too, and Domingo’s quiet demeanour, in a game littered with egos, must be acknowledged.
He and his back-room lieutenants are clearly doing something right, even if they do not stand and thump their chests about it. Their worth is told by the unflinching support and endorsement that comes from their players, who know just how much they put in, beyond the cameras and the cricket field.
The sun is shining on the Proteas once more, proving yet again that time heals all wounds.
The Star