Cape Town — Aiden Markram’s likely elevation to the Proteas T20 captaincy received a major boost after he was named captain of Sunrisers Hyderabad for IPL 2023.
Markram seems set to succeed Temba Bavuma, who relinquished the T20 leadership reins last week, as the new national short-format captain.
The 28-year-old’s stocks are certainly on the rise after leading the Sunrisers Eastern Cape to the inaugural Betway SA20 title earlier this month.
Markram has led the Proteas’ before in ODI cricket for a brief period of five matches in 2018.
He has, however, taken his game to an entirely different level in T20 cricket the past few years. Markram is currently perched at No 5 on the ICC T20I global batters ranking list.
He was also the Sunrisers Eastern Cape’s leading run-scorer in the Betway SA20 with 369 at 33.27 at a strike rate of 127.97, which included a match-winning century in the semi-final against Joburg Super Kings.
He also bagged 11 wickets at an economy of 6.19 with his part-time off spin - which earned him the overall Player of the Tournament accolade.
Markram will be hoping he can create a similar positive environment at the Sunrisers Hyderabad as he did with his Eastern Cape outfit.
“It’s about allowing guys to express themselves and take the fear of failure completely out of the game
It’s about getting guys to enjoy what they doing without putting any further pressure on them so they can express themselves fully.
To me, that gives people the best chance to succeed and it’s about trying to create that sort of free-spitred environment,” he said.
IOL Sport