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South Africa’s 2025-26 season-opening white-ball tours of Australia and England have ended with more success than failure. Across formats, they won six out of 11 matches and two out of four series, with one series defeat and the fourth shared. At the same time, they suffered their two biggest ODI defeats (in dead rubbers) and their largest T20I loss.

The blowouts must sting, especially because South Africa were hoping to bounce back from the last of them in the washed-out game at Trent Bridge on Sunday, but T20I captain Aiden Markram said South Africa are hopeful the setbacks were a thing of the past which wouldn’t need further dissection.

“You never like losing and then you don’t like losing by big margins either, so it certainly hurts the egos. It certainly hurts the feeling but we’ve addressed it obviously post that second T20,” Markram said. “It’s happened three times and I’ve put a lot of emphasis on making sure it doesn’t happen again. If you look after the way we approach the game and our processes off the field, we have to have belief that hopefully that’s not going to be a thing that continues.” There are other aspects to consider with 14 T20Is scheduled before next year’s World Cup.

One of those is the game against Namibia on October 11, which is being held to celebrate the new ground in Windhoek. It will be played with an understrength side as several South Africa regulars will be in Pakistan for a Test that starts the next day.

But another eight games will be played in the subcontinent (three in Pakistan and five in India) and those will likely give South Africa their clearest idea of combinations before the SA20 and five home T20Is against West Indies immediately prior to the World Cup. Here are the areas of concern five months away from the big tournament:

Do South Africa have the right openers?

Markram and Ryan Rickelton are the chosen ones in order to allow the bigger hitters to make up the rest of the line-up and, so far, they haven’t shot the lights out. In five matches, they have one stand of 50 and three others under 15. While Rickelton’s form is a concern - he hasn’t got a half-century in his last ten international innings across formats - Markram’s position is. He has spent most of his career at No. 4 and recognises that opening presents a different challenge, which he is still adapting to.