Despite the fact that South Africa won almost twice as many matches as they lost in 2017, the lingering impression of the year is of disappointment.

They played 40 games, winning 25 and losing 13, and emerged victorious in seven of 12 series.

But that doesn’t tell you that they crashed out of another major tournament, the Champions Trophy in England in June, in the first round.

Then England got the better of difficult conditions to win the test series 3-1 in July and August. That the English were also on top in the one-day and T20 rubbers didn’t hurt South Africans nearly as much.

Similarly, successful series in more than one format against Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and New Zealand can’t make up for what happened in England.

“At times we competed with the bat and England also misfired but there was always one guy that took the game away from us and we didn’t have that one guy,” Faf du Plessis said.

It was a year of unwanted realities for South Africa, a time when too much of what needed to go right went the other way.

They had to make do without the injured Dale Steyn and, in tests, the otherwise occupied AB de Villiers.

Several players spoke out in favour of retaining Russell Domingo as coach. After months in which the uncertainty of the situation hung over the dressingroom like a black cloud, it was announced after the England tour that Ottis Gibson would replace him.

The T20 Global League was touted as the solution for the game in this country being too financially dependent on tours by India, England and Australia, and as a shop window for quality players who hadn’t yet made their mark in bigger, brighter events of this ilk.

Franchise owners were unveiled, coaches named and players sold, and for a while it looked like the suits would get exactly what they wanted in November and December: another lurid T20 peepshow.

But, by October, the two biggest pieces of the puzzle — a broadcaster and a title sponsor — were still missing and the venture collapsed, taking with it Haroon Lorgat’s job as Cricket South Africa’s chief executive.

And yet, despite all that, Dean Elgar and Hashim Amla finished among the year’s top 10 test runscorers.

Quinton de Kock, Du Plessis and Amla did the same in ODIs, and De Villiers in T20s.

Kagiso Rabada, Keshav Maharaj and Morne Morkel loomed among the leading 10 wicket-takers in tests.

Imran Tahir and Rabada made the list in ODIs, and Tahir in T20s.

But the greater truth is that Amla is in decline and that Rabada has misplaced the intensity he bowled with a year ago.

The high points have been Elgar, a veritable grinch at the crease, Maharaj’s can-do attitude and performances with bat and ball and in the field, and Morkel’s storming return to form after months on the sideline through injury.

Not that any of them deserve the salute that South Africa’s women’s team earned at the World Cup in England.

They reached the semi-finals where they went down to, wouldn’t you know it, England. But not without the mother of all fights.

Dane van Niekerk, Marizanne Kapp, Laura Wolvaardt and Lizelle Lee, among several others, did their team and their supporters proud.