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CRICKET NEWS – Former Proteas all-rounder and current Mumbai Indians New York coach, Robin Peterson, believes that South Africa, men and women, will win the World Cup trophy in the near future, despite losing two World Cup finals this year.
The World Cup trophy illuded South African Cricket once again this month.
Since Unity in the early 1990s when South Africa was welcomed back into international cricket after being banned due to apartheid laws, South Africa, both men and women, are yet to win a World Cup trophy.
Both teams have reached multiple World Cup semi-finals and for a long time struggled to get to the final until a year ago when the Women's team reached the country's first-ever World Cup final at Newlands Stadium in Cape Town.
Despite falling short to Australia during that final, the Women's team inspired the Men's team to reach their first-ever final a year later when the Aiden Markram-led Proteas T20I team played India in the 2024 Men's ICC T20 World Cup final in Barbados in June.
The Men also fell short of glory during that final, losing a match that they were meant to win.
A few months later, the Women's team beat Australia Women for the first time in a World Cup semi-final in Dubai to qualify for the 2024 ICC Women's T20 World Cup before losing to New Zealand Women at the very same venue this past weekend.
According to former Proteas All-rounder, current local domestic and Mumbai Indians New York head coach, Robin Peterson, South African Cricket is not too far away from bringing the illusive trophy home.
The 45-year-old reiterated that South Africa has too much talent not to eventually go all the way in World Cups in the near future.
"We'll get on the mark at some point. We will win a World Cup. The longer I work in the circuit, the more I see that there's too much talent. It's about harnessing it, getting our own identity to the game and I'm sure that will fall into place," Peterson told SportsBoom.com in an exclusive interview.
"I know everybody is a little bit impatient, but if you want to build something, it takes a long time. South African cricket is still in its infancy if you think about unity, so I'm confident we will get there."
This past weekend, the Proteas Women's team found themselves losing the final to New Zealand Women not because of a difference in skill but due to the inability to play pressure moments well enough.
Proteas batters Anneke Bosch, Tazmin Brits, Nadine de Klerk and Sune Luus all fell cheaply in the final and it seemed that they struggled to rise to the occasion chasing 159 to win the World Cup.
Eventually, South Africa Women managed 126 runs in their allotted overs and lost nine wickets in the process, a scoreline that tells the tale of the team's inexperience at handling pressure games.
Peterson told SportsBoom that the players will come out of this experience with a better understanding of themselves as cricketers and human beings outside of the game, a combination that the 45-year-old believes is a recipe for success in World Cups in the future.
The 45-year-old believes that South African cricketers need to toughen up in handling pressure games in order to be successful.
"It's just about players finding out about themselves, how they fit into the group mentally. I don't think that player for player, the New Zealand Women’s team is better than South Africa Women. These things are so mental at the World Cups," said Peterson.
"You have to have sufficient self-awareness around your game, how you experience pressure as a group, how to experience it individually and tackling it is probably the biggest thing because the talent is unbelievable in this country, men and women.”
"If there's anything to improve, it's tightening up on the mental side. Maybe we need to toughen up a little bit when it comes to how we handle the big moments but then again, they showed it against Australia. Even our Proteas, getting over the semi-finals, and almost beating India in the final, we will get there eventually, I have no doubt about it."
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