Mickey Arthur, the South Africa coach, has said the heavy defeat to England in the one-day series last year had only made the team stronger and emerge as a world-beating unit. He said the 4-0 defeat - after winning the Test series - forced him and Graeme Smith to rethink their overall composition of their limited-overs side and the benefits are now being felt, with South Africa starting the ongoing ICC World Twenty20 as one of the favourites.
"I think that one-day series we had here (in England) after winning the Test series was a blessing in disguise for us," Arthur said. "It certainly forced myself and Graeme to sit back and do a lot of reflection, deciding on which way we wanted to go, what was going to be our brand going forward to the World Cup in 2011, who were the players we were going to look at and we did. We sat down and we thought long and hard about it.
"With the team we had in England, we didn't have the ability to take pace off the ball. We realised we needed to grow our spin bowling department, we realised we needed to have batters who could bowl spin coupled with out and out pace bowlers."
Though the current Twenty20 squad isn't markedly different from the one-day team which toured England last year, the big difference is the number of spinners who've helped South Africa's growth. The offspinner Johan Botha - an effective Twenty20 bowler - was elevated to the one-day captaincy to fill Smith's absence; JP Duminy has been chipping in regularly with his offbreaks and Roelof van der Merwe has been an asset with his left-arm spin and match-winning ability.
"I think we've got the balance right now. We've got seven definite bowling options, three of which are spin bowling options - I include JP Duminy in that because I think he's that good," Arthur said. "And we've got three guys who can bowl at over 140kph (Dale Steyn, Wayne Parnell and Jacques Kallis).
"We also bat down to ten - Wayne Parnell was batting at six for Kent a month back - and I still think as a group we are probably the best fielding side in the world."
Despite the team's recent success as a Test unit - with Test series wins in England and Australia - a victory in an ICC event has always eluded them. South Africa failed to make the semi-finals of the last World Twenty20 on their own turf and bowed out of the 2003 World Cup in the group stages, among other missed opportunities.
"We said a year ago there were three things we really wanted to do as a South African unit - to win a Test series in England, to win a Test series in Australia and to win an ICC trophy event," Arthur said. "We've flattered to deceive in ICC events. We've ticked two of the three boxes and we've got three opportunities until 2011 to put the other one right so here's hoping."