The Proteas will take some time to reflect on their near miss on the weekend after falling short against India in the final of the ICC T20 World Cup.

India are the deserved champions for the first time in 17-years after beating South Africa by 7-runs in Barbados on the weekend.

There were moments in the game where a bit of luck maybe didn’t go the way of the Proteas but ultimately, India was superb with both bat and ball.

A disappointed Proteas skipper Aiden Markram said his players deserved to break their duck.

“It's not a specific moment, it's an overall game of 40 overs and if you look at a couple of moments potentially where you could have done better,” said Markram.

“But all-in-all, I’m still proud of the performance we put together in a final and to get close like that is something I'm just proud of.

“I don't think I can say yet to be honest but yeah, it's tough. This group's 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.

“So, pretty tough to deal with now, but it's a sport at the end of the day. Someone's going to win, someone's going to lose.

“We'll try to use it to fire us up for future events.”

Next month the Proteas will head back to the Caribbean for two Tests and three T20 Internationals against the West Indies.

Morgan Piek OFM Sport