NEWS
Follow UsSouth Africa won all four of their games in the group stage of the 2024 T20 World Cup but that was largely because of their bowling unit. The batters are yet to fire, with David Miller (101 runs @ 50.50) being the only one with more than 100 runs. In fact, not a single South African batter has a strike rate of more than 98 in the competition.
South Africa captain Aiden Markram, however, isn’t too worried with the conditions being extremely difficult for batting. “I thought our bowlers so far throughout the comp have been really good for us and potentially bailed us out of jail once or twice,” said Markram ahead of South Africa’s Super 8 encounter against the USA on June 19 (Wednesday).
“But it's understandably so. Conditions have been quite tough for us with the bat. And like I said at the start, now it's a fresh start for us. Specifically, if you speak as a batting group, we get the chance to get to new conditions, hopefully slightly more batting friendly for us, and a good time for us to start peaking and finding some form moving forward in the competition.
The Proteas are now playing at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua where top teams have managed to score runs at a decent rate. The venue has proved to be at least better than the one in New York. But Markram feels the surface in Antigua is also going to be challenging for the batters.
“Hopefully, it's on the side of new conditions and a lot of excitement and buzz around that, but guys are only human. If you've not been scoring runs, you tend to maybe search for your first 5-10 balls of an innings. But it's about backing the fact that if you get through that phase, hit a couple of good shots, and it automatically brings that feel-good factor back to you and sort of just run with it from there.
“Hopefully the conditions are better to bat. I think they're still going to be challenging but potentially the opposite side of the scale in terms of it might spin a bit more now and obviously in New York there was none of that so - but having the game and the plans and the options from a batting unit point of view in your locker, but more importantly feeling the bravery and the courage to bring them out if needs be if the wicket is turning like that.”
Talking about the USA, who defeated Canada and Pakistan in the group stage, Markram said: “They've been really good. I think not just them but a lot of the people will sort of say smaller nations, but they're not and they've proved that they're not anymore. We're going to 100% have to be on our best game tomorrow to, hopefully for things to go well, but I'm excited for that challenge. A team that we haven't played much cricket against.”
South Africa don’t have a great record when it comes to the knockout stage of ICC events but Markram feels they can go all the way if they put up complete performances in the upcoming games. “We feel like over the last couple of years, we've been playing good cricket. Had a really good 50-over World Cup last year and took a lot of confidence from that. You try to time your run perfectly,” said Markram.
“Obviously, things don't work out perfectly, but if we can start putting complete games of cricket together moving forward, give ourselves a crack to get into semifinals and knockout cricket and then you kind of know you're just one or two good games away from doing something really special. The guys are still really fizzed up about that idea and the thought of doing that and but also sort of understanding the fact that it's three pretty big games for us to get into that position and have that opportunity.”
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