Aiden Markram vowed that South Africa's near-miss in the T20 World Cup final will "fire us up" for future tournaments, but admitted that their failure to win their first major title after needing 30 runs from the final five overs was "gut-wrenching" and "pretty tough to deal with".
This was South Africa's first men's World Cup final in either white-ball format and they looked nailed on to chase 176 after the 15th over of their innings, which saw Axar Patel concede 22. But India's bowlers conceded a single boundary - via Kagiso Rabada's outside edge - in the final 30 balls to pull off a seven-run win and leave South Africa to dwell on what might have been.
Asked to put his emotions into words, Markram said: "I don't think I can say them yet, to be honest. It's tough. This group is a great bunch of people. In my opinion, they deserve really good things to go their way.
"I had a really good feeling about this competition before we came here and as the competition went on, that feeling got stronger and stronger. It's pretty tough to deal with now, but it's sport at the end of the day: someone's going to win, someone's going to lose. And we'll try to use it to fire us up for future events."
The core of South Africa's side are aged 28 to 34, with Marco Jansen and Tristan Stubbs the only younger players picked for the final. Some of them will have moved on by the time of the next T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka in early 2026, with Quinton de Kock's retirement expected imminently, but Markram believes the rest will use this defeat to spur them on.
"It's a great group of guys that's been together for quite a long time now," he said. "To get to our first final, like I mentioned a few days ago, it's something we can be proud of [but] still, in our eyes, not good enough. You're not satisfied with making a final… it'll take a bit of time for us to reflect back on all the good things that we've done, but obviously for the time being, it just hurts a lot."
Markram said he was "proud" of how his team performed throughout the competition, winning eight games out of eight to reach the final: "In hindsight, things will still feel really good about this competition. Just for the time being, it stings a bit, but it's good for it to sting. It gives you that little bit of fire in the belly for the next time that you're here."
He also said that by reaching their first final, South Africa have become "one step closer" and that when they finally win one, there will be "a snowball effect of quite a few to come… It's tournament cricket, it's tough cricket. It's not easy to win trophies and you've got to take your hats off to a team like India for lifting the trophy. A lot of hard work goes into it.
"It's just gut-wrenching. That's really what it is. Each player has been on a different individual journey to get to this first final. Ultimately, you become really tight as a group and you want good things to happen to this group because you know they're great people.
"When you get really close like that, especially the nature of how the game went, obviously adds to the emotions. It's one of those things but, we can channel it moving forward. I think for the next couple of days you let it be, you let yourself feel the way you want to feel and then really start reflecting in a positive manner."
Markram also singled Heinrich Klaasen out for praise, after his innings of 52 off 27 balls took South Africa into their position of strength with five overs remaining. "It was special," Markram said. "We've seen him do it many, many times around the world.
"To deliver it on a stage like this is a really special effort. It's going to be tough for him [but] when we reflect back, there's going to be lots of things to be happy about and I'm sure that knock would have made it really tough to put in a performance like that."