The World Cup final that was there to be won... until it wasn't

Thirty runs needed off 30 balls, six wickets in hand. Twenty-six off 24, still six standing. Twenty-two off 18, five down. Twenty off 12, six gone. Sixteen off six, no further loss. Only eight scored off those last six, and another wicket taken. Defeat by seven runs. How?

"It's not the first game of cricket that's been lost with a team needing 30 off 30. It's more that India are allowed to bowl well, they're allowed to field well, they're allowed to go from that position to a position of strength."

That's Aiden Markram at his press conference after his team had been beaten by India in the Men's T20 World Cup final at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados on Saturday. Note the term: beaten. They were not disgraced. They did not choke.

South Africa were in a winning position, but they did not squander it. The opposition were indeed, in Markram's words, "allowed" to play well. If they play better than you, you lose and they win. That's how sport works. And India were better in the last five overs.

It helped having the genius of Jasprit Bumrah on hand to bowl two of them. Hardik Pandya's two overs unspooled like a redemption song for all he has been through since usurping Rohit Sharma as Mumbai Indians captain. Little wonder Pandya had to wipe the tears off his face before availing himself for one of those awful interviews conducted when hearts are still beating too fast for their own good.

It wouldn't have helped India get through those five overs intact knowing they would be the last time giants of the stature of Rohit and Virat Kohli would be in an India T20 shirt. Did the dressingroom know then that Ravindra Jadeja would also retire? Nor would it have helped that, despite everything the IPL has done for the format, it had been 17 years since India won this trophy. That's pressure, and it showed in the tears of relief that flowed once the challenge had been met.

India deserved to win because they handled the stresses of the situation better and, consequently, played better cricket. Did South Africa deserve to lose? The question was irrelevant for Hashim Amla, who was part of a SuperSport studio panel that featured Russell Domingo and Chris Morris. Domingo and Amla, who are now on the Lions coaching staff, were sat either side of Morris, who said, "This is why these two do well at the Lions, because he [pointing at Amla] says you don't deserve anything in this game, that the game owes you nothing. And this one [pointing at Domingo] says the game's rude."

Even so, Domingo could empathise: "It's going to take them a long time to get over this. Emotions were hurt, and it takes so much out of you. You've given everything for two or three years leading to this event, and one or two things don't fall into place. To get back up and step into the arena again is going to be a challenge and there might be a drop-off in terms of intensity for a period of time. They are so desperate to do well and they're playing such good cricket, and once again they've fallen short."

Domingo knows the feeling. He was South Africa's head coach at the 2015 World Cup - when clumsy interference by CSA's suits around team selection on the eve of the semifinal against New Zealand at Eden Park knocked the South Africans off kilter and probably cost them the game.

Then, Grant Elliott launched Dale Steyn over his head for the matchwinning six with a ball to spare. This time, Suryakumar Yadav produced a furiously balletic catch on the boundary to remove David Miller and erase six of what might have been the winning runs.

It was the first ball of the last over, and while the target of 16 was steep, the South Africans would have considered themselves to still have one hand on the trophy, albeit not as firmly as four overs previously. But while they had Miller, his face set with the knowledge and resolve that the job was his to get done, they had hope. One slipping hand on the trophy wasn't enough when Yadav, with a hop and a skip either side of the boundary, got both hands to the ball, twice, and held on, twice.

Photographs and video suggested the boundary cushion had moved a few centimetres beyond a line of yellowed grass that looked like where the cushion should have been: the actual boundary, in terms of this supposition. The implication is that the cushion was closer to the fence than the boundary.

And thus that Yadav, who was perilously close to touching the cushion when the ball was in his hands but did not do so, trod on the actual boundary while he was in contact with the ball. And so the catch should have been disallowed, six runs should have been awarded, and Miller should have been permitted to continue his assault. Did Richard Kettleborough, the television umpire who decided the catch was fair, get it wrong?

What cricket calls its laws says under "19.3: Restoring the boundary" that, "If a solid object used to mark the boundary is disturbed for any reason, then the boundary shall be considered to be in its original position. The object shall be returned to its original position as soon as is practicable; if play is taking place, this shall be as soon as the ball is dead." But the faded grass line was visible on only some of the replays, and there was no discussion about whether the cushion was in the wrong place.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda. Yadav acted in accordance with where the cushion was, not where it perhaps should have been. There is nothing to say he was advantaged by where it was, or that he wouldn't have adjusted his movements accordingly if it had been on the grass line. Besides, umpires' mistakes - if this was that - are part of the game, just like those made by players.

Far be it for Amla to get into weeds as rancorous as these: "I feel quietly optimistic about what's to come, having gone past the hurdle of [winning] a semifinal. Now this final is a reality for this team. Once you see the reality, you experience it, and this team and all South African teams know that."

On Tristan Stubbs: "For a young boy playing his first World Cup, he came out playing without fear, took the game on, and got us ahead of the game." On the new generation: "With the exposure they've had in the IPL, the SA20 and in our domestic system, you're seeing these youngsters coming in and they're straight into the game. Before it took longer to get into international cricket. They're getting into it very quickly, and we're seeing the performances."

Amla has always seemed to be from some other, rarefied planet far above messy mortality. The rest of his cricket-minded compatriots are struggling not to feel worse than they usually do after tumbling down a cliff of disappointment. For them, it's precisely because South Africa seemed to have put the past behind them by showing they had learnt how to win tight games, because they reached the final this time, because they came so close to winning it, because they didn't panic or choke, that this hurts so much. They did all that and made all that progress and it still wasn't good enough.

Had South Africa been thumped on Saturday, the part of the nation that cares about cricket would have moved on by now. In that case, fair play to India, easily the better team on the day. But it wasn't like that. The game was there to be won, until it wasn't.

Afterwards, Camilla Miller held her distraught husband of not quite four months with a tenderness so strong it was difficult to watch. Tabraiz Shamsi put one arm around Khadija Shariff, his wife, and the other around their three-year-old son. It looked for all the world like they were his supporting pillars, keeping him upright when he couldn't quite find reason to look the world in the eye.

Love like that is needed now, and it seems a lot of it is around the players. But not all of us will have enough of the precious stuff. Some are trapped in bleakness, wondering how they are ever going to watch any team play any sport ever again. They will, of course, but right here, right now, the tunnel has no end.