27 June 2024 Punjab Khabarnama : Aiden Markram reflected on the much-discussed pitch of the Brian Lara Stadium in Trinidad after South Africa stormed into the final of the T20 World Cup 2024. He mentioned that the South African team would be pleased to not play on the tricky pitch again as the final will be played at the Providence Stadium in Guyana on June 29, Sunday. The pitch became a taking point as it had uneven bounce on offer and was not the easiest of the tracks to bat on. The spicy and tricky pitch saw Afghanistan getting bundled out for just 56 runs, which is the lowest total by a team in the semi-final of the T20 World Cups.
Markram became the first-ever South African captain to lead the Proteas to their maiden World Cup final. The Afghanistan batters struggled to get going against the South African bowlers as they fell like a pack of cards. Even the South African batters struggled initially in the powerplay with plenty of seam movement. However, Markram and Reeza Hendricks helped South Africa chase down the target of 57 runs within 8.5 overs.
Markram admitted that the batters had a hard time scoring runs in the tournament. However, he felt that T20 cricket is not always supposed to be a batter’s game.
“Yeah, I mean T20 cricket as a whole, you want entertainment. The wickets that we’ve had throughout the competition have been pretty challenging. Tonight’s wicket was pretty challenging once again. It’s hard to tell that a wicket is not good because it can’t just always be a batter’s game, but I think if we reflect on this wicket, we’ll probably be pretty happy that we’re not playing here again,” Markram told the media in the post-match press-conference.
“But having said that, still taking the positives we can. Wickets are tough. Wickets are the same for both teams on the night. So, finding a way to win is probably the most important thing.”
Markram credits SA pacers
Markram credited the South African bowlers for making full use of the conditions and put South Africa in winning position.
Tonight was an exceptional performance by the whole bowling unit and the pitch was obviously quite challenging as we saw and like I said you do still have to get the ball in the right area, so you give credit to your bowlers. They’ve used the conditions really well and managed to get us into a winning position,” Markram added.
Marco Jansen was awarded as the Player of the Match for his figures of 3-0-3-16 against Afghanistan. Tabraiz Shamsi also picked 3 wickets alongside Keshav Maharaj and Anrich Nortje, who picked 2 wickets each.
