South Africa's 2025-26 season-opening white-ball tours of Australia and England have ended with more success than failure. Across formats, they won six out of 11 matches and two out of four series, with one series defeat and the fourth shared. At the same time, they suffered their two biggest ODI defeats (in dead rubbers) and their largest T20I loss.
The blowouts must sting, especially because South Africa were hoping to bounce back from the last of them in the washed-out game at Trent Bridge on Sunday, but T20I captain Aiden Markram said South Africa are hopeful the setbacks were a thing of the past which wouldn't need further dissection.
"You never like losing and then you don't like losing by big margins either, so it certainly hurts the egos. It certainly hurts the feeling but we've addressed it obviously post that second T20," Markram said. "It's happened three times and I've put a lot of emphasis on making sure it doesn't happen again. If you look after the way we approach the game and our processes off the field, we have to have belief that hopefully that's not going to be a thing that continues."
There are other aspects to consider with 14 T20Is scheduled before next year's World Cup.
One of those is the game against Namibia on October 11, which is being held to celebrate the new ground in Windhoek. It will be played with an understrength side as several South Africa regulars will be in Pakistan for a Test that starts the next day. But another eight games will be played in the subcontinent (three in Pakistan and five in India) and those will likely give South Africa their clearest idea of combinations before the SA20 and five home T20Is against West Indies immediately prior to the World Cup.
Here are the areas of concern five months away from the big tournament:
Do South Africa have the right openers?
Markram and Ryan Rickelton are the chosen ones in order to allow the bigger hitters to make up the rest of the line-up and, so far, they haven't shot the lights out. In five matches, they have one stand of 50 and three others under 15. While Rickelton's form is a concern - he hasn't got a half-century in his last ten international innings across formats - Markram's position is. He has spent most of his career at No. 4 and recognises that opening presents a different challenge, which he is still adapting to.
"The middle order is a place where you have to have your game on different levels at different times, whereas opening needs you to be more consistent with your planning," he said. "Sometimes you get good wickets and you can cash in. I've felt like I've got in a few times now, but I haven't quite cashed in. The focus moving forward is to continue to try and get the team off to good starts, but then when you get in, [you have] to play proper match-winning knocks."
Should South Africa have a rethink and move Markram down, they may also look at bringing back Rassie van der Dussen (the MI Cape Town opener) for a few months of T20 cricket, or to throw Lhuan-dre Pretorius in at the deep end. If the latter comes at Rickelton's expense, they could also give Pretorius the gloves.
Can Jansen, Bosch and Maphaka be in the same XI?
Marco Jansen was not available for the Australia series as he recovered from thumb surgery, but the Corbin Bosch-Kwena Maphaka combination worked really well there.
Between them, the two quicks took 16 wickets at an average of 12.68 across three matches.
All three were in the same XI for the opener against England, but Maphaka didn't bowl in a rain-reduced encounter where Kagiso Rabada made his comeback. They were able to fit all four seamers in because Lungi Ngidi was out.
The question facing South Africa will be how to juggle things if they get a situation where all their quicks are available and it would likely come down to two out of the three names in the headline above.
While all of them are quick, Jansen and Bosch are genuine allrounders and offer big-hitting while Jansen and Maphaka are both left-arm bowlers. If that already sounds like a problem of plenty, consider that South Africa also have raw pace in Nandre Burger and Gerald Coetzee, neither of whom are being considered for T20Is at the moment, waiting in the wings.
The issue with injuries
David Miller was given special dispensation to miss the Australia T20Is because of his deal to play in the Hundred, but the agreement was that would then stay on in England for South Africa's series. His body had other ideas. Miller injured his hamstring and could play no part in the T20Is, which denied South Africa's middle-order experience.
Dewald Brevis' immense talent meant South Africa still had firepower in their line-up, but a combination of Brevis and Miller will be worth seeing, if only to see how strong it could be. That opportunity could come at the end of next month in Pakistan.
By then, South Africa will also hope to have Ngidi and Keshav Maharaj back from hamstring and groin concerns, respectively. Both players are crucial to their T20 World Cup plans with Ngidi's variations earning him a more regular spot across all formats and Maharaj's reliability pushing out George Linde and Senuran Muthusamy, both of whom originally had what coach Shukri Conrad called "the inside lane" on World Cup selection. Bjorn Fortuin, the other spinner in the set-up, only has an outside chance of getting another look-in.
As things stand, none of the other frontline T20I players are injured (though Test and ODI captain Temba Bavuma has a calf niggle which will put him in a race against time for the Pakistan series), but from mid-October, South Africa play non-stop until March. They will need to balance some players between the need to get their WTC title defence off to a good start with their desire to progress as far as possible at the T20 World Cup.