- Proteas coach Mark Boucher has had an eventful stint as Proteas coach.
- Where the Proteas have been competitive in Tests, they have been distinctly poor in ODIs.
- They have been a mixed batch in T20s, but having found a working group of players, they're a force to be reckoned with in that format.
Mark Boucher's tenure as Proteas coach fitted in a decade of events on and off the field in just under three years of work. We look at his highs and lows on the field:
His first crushing blow: Third Test v England, Gqeberha, 2020 - Lost by an innings and 53 runs
Boucher joined the Proteas as soon as Graeme Smith was announced as director of cricket (acting at the time), and the appointment caused a fair bit of opprobrium as Enoch Nkwe, who was better qualified and had more coaching experience, was demoted to be his assistant after acting in the coaching position after Ottis Gibson's post-World Cup exit.
The England series started unexpectedly well with the Proteas winning the first Test despite fielding two debutants in Dwaine Pretorius and Rassie van der Dussen.
England clawed their way back into the series with a 189-run win in the second Test at Newlands where the game was decided in the last hour of the fifth evening.
Whatever fight they had left with that Newlands Test as the third Test at St George's Park saw the Proteas cascaded to an innings and 53-run defeat. That scale of defeat was SA's first of that manner at home since 2002.
Across both innings, none of the top five batters crossed 40 as SA's batting woes that admittedly started before Boucher's tenure continued unabated.
The fourth Test at the Wanderers was also lost by a wide margin as the Proteas surrendered their second consecutive home series against England.
A rare high: A limited overs whitewash of Australia at home
Far better fight was shown in the limited-overs series against England, but another low was hit when the Proteas batting blew out badly against Australia in the T20 series where they were bowled out for 96 and 89 in the first and the third games of that series.
This was quickly forgotten when Boucher's side reeled off three consecutive wins in Paarl, Bloemfontein and Potchefstroom as the likes of Janneman Malan and Kyle Verreynne started to flex their muscles at international level.
Covid-19 though got in the way of this mini-revival and the Proteas have yet to hit these 50-over heights, especially at a time when they need to qualify for the World Cup.
This was also followed up by a 3-0 series win against India at the start of 2022, but like the Australia series, those games didn't count towards the ODI Super League, where the South Africans are currently struggling.
Another low: A T20 battering against England
England, a team Boucher played against 61 times across all formats in 12 years, started to become an unwanted nemesis.
They came back for a limited-overs tour in December, where they infamously left before the ODI series started because of a Covid-19 scare.
The first two games of the T20 series were closely contested, but it was in the third T20 where the wheels truly fell off.
The Proteas' 191/3 looked formidable but an unbeaten 99 from Dawid Malan and 67* from Jos Buttler laid waste to SA's green bowling attack.
This series defeat has more than been avenged, with SA having won three of the past four T20s against England, including a landmark series win.
The highest Test high: turning over India in SA
Having won twice in Australia, along with getting the better of England, Virat Kohli's charges had every reason to believe they could beat what was arguably the weakest SA team they'd faced on these shores.
After all, an unheralded Sri Lankan side had surprised all and sundry by being the first Asian team to win a Test series in SA when they did so in 2019.
India were licking their lips and certainly felt they were close to the holy grail when they won the first Test by a wide margin.
SA bounced back with a first win against India at the Wanderers and made sure India left the country with their tails between their legs when they won the third Test in Cape Town.
That series defeat ended Kohli's Test captaincy of the Indian team, from where the Proteas went and drew a Test series away in New Zealand.
50-Over plunging: Losses to Ireland, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Bangladesh
The 50-over format is one that Boucher couldn't quite get a grip on and it's shown in SA's returns in the ICC Super League where the Proteas have only won four out of 13 games.
There have been some mind-numbing defeats, none more than the 43-run loss to Ireland in Dublin where 10 reasonably manageable ODI Super League points were relinquished.
They bounced back to draw that series, but a further 2-1 series loss against Sri Lanka where chasing against proved to be an issue came back to haunt them.
Then there were the 2-1 home series losses against Bangladesh and Pakistan that, according to the latest batch of results between the teams, were expected, but still remained unacceptable.
The decision to cancel the ODI Super League encounters against Australia was beyond Boucher's scope, but the points missed from those matches have hamstrung SA's chances of qualifying directly for the next World Cup.
The Proteas have 49 points, 39 adrift of the eighth-placed West Indies, and they look likely to have to take the qualifier route to the 50-over showpiece.