For a team undergoing a prolonged period of transition, South Africa “turned the corner a while ago” but needed a result like the one they got against India to bolster belief of the group, feels head coach Mark Boucher.

Administrative crises, retirement of star players and racism allegations have hampered South African cricket over the past 24 months.

“We spoke about our journey and not worrying about the series,” he said during an online media interaction after the Proteas won the ODI series against India 3-0 on Sunday.

“We wanted to win 3-0. We’ve been through the hard times and only once you’ve been through the hard times do you really appreciate the good ones. We appreciate this, but our feet are firmly planted on the ground. This is just a nice chapter in our continued journey. We have a captain in Tembs (Bavuma) who really is demanding on results and that’s good,” Boucher added.

“The progression has been great. I think we turned the corner a while ago from a team perspective but obviously we needed the results. We tried a few things in Covid times. We gave a lot of opportunities to a lot of players and I think we are starting to reap the rewards now,” he said.

The former keeper-batsman, who faces a disciplinary hearing into racism allegations, refused to respond to a question on the lows during his stint as coach. “I think you will appreciate that I can’t answer that,” Boucher said.