“I'm so glad we’ve made them proud.”
This was Proteas’ Men’s T20 captain Aiden Markram’s feelings after his team made history by progressing to an ICC T20 World Cup final for the first time on Thursday.
A full generation of Proteas teams have fallen short since South Africa’s return to international cricket from isolation all the way back in 1992.
No Proteas’ Men’s team had advanced any further than seven previous semi-finals across the two white-ball formats – ODI and T20 – with Markram’s Class of 2024 breaking the curse with an emphatic nine-wicket win over Afghanistan in Trinidad and Tobago.
The nature of the World Cup semi-final defeats, most notably in Birmingham (1999), Trent Bridge (2009) and Auckland (2015) were heartbreaking and left these groups of players with plenty of mental scarring.
Former Proteas fast bowler Dale Steyn, who was the bowler on the wrong side of the epic defeat to New Zealand in Auckland nine years ago and is now on commentary duty in Trinidad, immediately went down to the players’ dugout to embrace Markram’s team.
Steyn later posted on social media: “It’s emotional down here. We’re into a final.”
Markram certainly appreciated Steyn’s applause and attributed the victory to all the Proteas that had fallen short before.
“They were guys that are legends of the game, legends of South African cricket. In my eyes, it doesn’t matter if they made a final or not, because they inspired all of us to play cricket for South Africa,” Markram said.
“Because of them, we’re trying to represent those people that have played before us, so we’re glad we’ve made them proud, (and) to an extent I still feel we’ve got one more step left. I’m glad that guys like Dale Steyn are incredibly happy.” Markram joins former Proteas Women’s skipper Sune Luus as the only two senior national team captains to steer their respective sides to a World Cup final.
Luus’s team unfortunately lost their T20 World Cup showpiece at Newlands in Cape Town to the all-conquering Australians.
Markram, however, remains the sole South African captain to lift an ICC World Cup trophy when he led the SA U19 team to glory exactly 10 years ago in Malaysia. Fast bowler Kagiso Rabada was also part of that victorious team.
“It’s a really long time ago and my memory is not great, but you get a little bit of confidence and a little bit of belief, knowing you have done it on a certain level before,” he said.
“I don’t think it’s the exact same here as men’s cricket, but there are similar pressures that you have to deal with being in a final and we would have experienced that in 2014, so the bit of confidence, the bit of belief that we can take from that we’ll try use to the best that we can.”
The Proteas are aiming to create further history by becoming the first team to lift the T20 World Cup trophy having passed through the entire tournament unbeaten.
They have won eight straight matches, including four close encounters, which Markram feels has prepared his team for the ultimate challenge on Saturday.
“You do get belief from winning close games and potentially winning games that you thought you weren’t going to win. It does a lot for your changing room and the vibe in the changing room. So we’ll take a little bit of confidence from that and see if we can put it to any use in the final.
“We feel and we believe that we can compete with the best in the world and we can win trophies. And it’s nice for us to now have that opportunity and make it into a final. Once we get to Barbados and we see what we think we’re going to come across in terms of the pitch.
“Then we’ll try to pick our best XI.”
Cape Times