13 years later, South Africa's eyes are back on the prize at Lord's

Cricket was different the last time South Africa's men's team went to Lord's with their eyes on the prize of the Test mace. There was no WTC, much less the contrived confection of a final.

"Under Graeme's leadership there were important Tests leading up to clinching the mace at Lord's," Ashwell Prince, South Africa's batting coach, said on Wednesday. "In those days there wasn't a final. So, because this is a final, it does feel that way."

Like, Prince meant, a more important Test than any of the 472 South Africa have played. And, many would say, though he did not, that the march to the mace Graeme Smith's team completed with a five-wicket win over England at Lord's in August 2012 made more sense than this.

How is it fair that the team who top the standings after a league that grinds on for two years are not awarded the trophy for doing exactly that? Instead they are required to jump through an additional hoop in the shape of winning the only knockout match of the competition. Worse yet, should that match be drawn the trophy will be shared with the second-placed side.

Even worse, for Ben Curran, the broken hand he sustained - courtesy of Kagiso Rabada - while batting late on the second day of a four-day match in Arundel on Wednesday could take him out of the mix for the two Tests Zimbabwe will play against South Africa in Bulawayo between June 28 and July 10.

The town is lovely beyond any singing of it, as everyone connected with the Arundel Castle Cricket Club seems to be. But Curran might well wonder at the cruelty of being denied Test caps as a consequence of playing in a meaningless match that wouldn't have taken place had it not been for the final. The game's premise - as a warm-up for the South Africans - looks shaky what with the first and third days washed out completely.

Similarly, had the WTC featured semifinals, the final would have had more credibility. Now it looks like nothing more than another profit vehicle for the events management company called the ICC.

Of course, the players don't write the rules. So South Africa will have to beat Australia at Lord's next week to earn the right to call themselves champions, which by rights they already are.

But they shouldn't expect victory to quell the brattish unhappiness at their perceived temerity. Quite the contrary is assured. Who do these upstarts think they are to dare to dream they belong in the WTC final? Do they think they're India? England? Australia?

Irrelevant noise of that sort is easy enough to ignore. Less so the inner disquiet that can overwhelm players, as has happened to the South Africans so often in white-ball tournaments.

"What we're trying to focus on in our preparation, in the way that we go about our business, is that it's an important fixture," Prince said. "But we trust what we've been doing. So it's not as if you've got this exam coming up, and all of a sudden you've got to cram things in. Or cram in new things that you might not have thought of before. We trust what we've done in the past. It's worked for us, and we deserve the opportunity to have a crack at it in the final."

So don't expect a raft of new ideas from Temba Bavuma's team once the match starts on Wednesday.

"The last thing you want to do is spend too much time on too many different things that you think might assist you to win the game. Every player has a process that gets them ready in terms of mindset and how they want to feel physically going into the game. Those are the things we want to focus on in our preparation. When the game happens, you just let it unfold and trust your game."

Another departure with South Africa's 2012 generation is obvious from a glance at the scorecard of that Lord's Test. Smith, Hashim Amla, Jacques Kallis, AB de Villiers and Dale Steyn are among the finest players not just from South Africa but in the entire all-time canon. And they were all in that XI. Of the class of 2025, only Kagiso Rabada is unquestionably in that class. Yet this team are on top of the standings despite having been afforded just 12 Tests in the 2023/24 WTC cycle.

"A lot of our players have had fantastic success over the last 18 to 24 months to get themselves into this position," Prince said. "But a lot of them are young guys who came into the team at the same time. Because of that there's a sense of everyone wanting the guy next to them to do well and enjoy each other's success."

Ten of South Africa's 15 are 30 or younger. Only Rabada, Bavuma and Keshav Maharaj have played more than 50 Tests. Those are good reasons to make the next one count. In happy ways.