The year 2018 will fondly be remembered by South Africa as one when they relentlessly crossed legal hurdles, swayed past logistical nightmares, won and lost stakeholders, and somehow, against all odds, got their own T20 league running - the surest sign of progress these days.

South Africa, perhaps, had the dreamiest start to the year when they fielded apace quartetof Vernon Philander, Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Kagiso Rabada in the same line-up in Cape Town, but that didn't even last the entirety of that one Test. Steyn limped out with a heel injury and there were serious doubts over his immediate future in the game.

Somewhere in the middle was an opportunity lost for Cricket South Africa to line them up like Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Colin Croft and Joel Garner giving mean stares to the camera to recreate their own version of the iconic pace quartet snap of 1981.

But all is well that ends well, which 2018 did for Steyn when he pipped Shaun Pollock [421 Test wickets] to be the leading Test wicket-taker for South Africa in the Boxing Day game in Centurion - right where it had all begun for him.

Between those two Steyn Tests, South Africa experienced quite a lot - Aiden Markram's on and off form, Kagiso Rabada's continued brilliance and a Test series victory against Australia at home - the first time they achieved this feat since their readmission. All this not before being spectators to a shoddy attempt at ball tampering in Newlands, that would become the epicentre of a wave that turned Australian cricket's world upside down.

What went right: Their historic series win over Australia - their first at home against them since readmission in 1991-92 - now famous for Australia's desperate 'efforts' to change their fate in Newlands. Before that, they enjoyed a series win over India at the start of the year where their bowlers denied the visitors in two fourth innings chases.

What went wrong: AB de Villierstook the sheen away from the four-yearly ritual of South Africa fans getting their hopes up about their team winning that elusive maiden 50-over World Cup title. In May this year, de Villiers decided he'd given his everything in South Africa colours and called it quits.

Almost like an aftermath of that a call came the utter disastrous tour of Sri Lanka in July-August where they were completely blanked by the hosts in the two Tests. Hashim Amla finished with 40 runs in four innings while SA's best - Faf du Plessis - couldn't even manage one-third of how much the series-topper Dimuth Karunaratne did. They bounced back via the 50-over format, killing the five-game series after the third fixture itself. They eventually won the series 3-2 and had better individual numbers to show as well - JP Duminy and Quinton de Kock was amongst the runs and Lungi Ngidi picked 10 wickets - just four short of Akila Dananjaya's tally of 14.

Top performer: Kagiso Rabada

Midway through the Boxing Day Test in Cape Town against Pakistan, the 23-year-old went past 50 Test wickets in the calendar year. In a year when Steyn endured a lengthy injury layoff, Morne Morkel called time on his South Africa career and turned Kolpak, and Vernon Philander too was troubled by injuries - Rabada's ability to rekindle his 2017 form (57 wickets in 11 Tests) was quite special and much-needed for South Africa.

Biggest disappointment: Hashim Amla

Faf du Plessis has had to publicly throw his weight behind the veteran batsman recently, but even he'd know that Hashim Amla has had a rather ordinary year by his standards. Amla went from 947 Test runs in 21 innings in 2017 to just 510 in 20 in 2018. He couldn't score a century this year (3 in 2017) and averaged just over 25.

What does 2019 have in store: Whisper it softly - a World Cup campaign sans the dreadful C-word. Before that, they host Sri Lanka at home in February-March before few of their players head to India for what could be a low-key IPL right before the World Cup. Post the showpiece event, there's a tough tour of India in the offing.