Another match going down to the wire? No problem, say South Africa ©AFP
Who are these players and what have they done with the usual suspects who wear South Africa across their chests; those who don't seem to have more than one plan and whose performances melt into shapeless desperation when events don't follow their preferred design?
They're mostly the same players. Of South Africa's squad of 15 at the men's T20 World Cup, only Ryan Rickelton, Ottneil Baartman and Bjorn Fortuin arrived having never played in a World Cup in either format. Rickelton and Fortuin still haven't.
The other side of that equation is as significant. Quinton de Kock and David Miller are the only survivors of South Africa's sole success in World Cup knockout games. Both featured in the 2015 World Cup quarterfinal at the SCG, where they beat Sri Lanka by nine wickets.
New Zealand won the semifinal that followed, at Eden Park, by four wickets with a ball to spare. South Africa's only other appearance at the sharp end of a tournament since then was in the World Cup semi against Australia at Eden Gardens in November last year, when they went down by three wickets.
The South Africans have reached the knockout rounds in seven of their nine World Cups, and in two of their previous eight T20 World Cup campaigns. All told, that's nine trips to the knockout stages in 18 tournaments. And still no trophy. Not even a place in a final. So cricketminded South Africans are, understandably, still waiting to exhale. The team are in the semis again? Big deal. Come back to us when there's something new to report.
There is, already, something new. It's as if this South Africa team have given up on the neat and whimsical but impractical and simplistic notion of playing the perfect game. Instead they've settled for playing the game that is only just good enough to win, warts and all. Seven times now.
The unmagnificent seven that all that imperfection has achieved was completed somewhere after midnight in North Sound, Antigua on Sunday - in the slightly less early hours of Monday morning in South Africa - when Aiden Markram guided his side to
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