South Africa has been a perennial underachiever when it comes to the matters of ICC trophy. While they have had their moments in the knockouts, more often than not, they have ended up on the wrong side of things. However, they have another opportunity in the form of the World Test Championship starting on June 11 to rewrite the narrative, and Aiden Markram said the team made sure they have “buried” the losses from the past nicely.
“This team is a bit different,” Markram said to reporters at Lord’s on Sunday. “The few of us that have been a part of previous events that didn’t go our way have dealt with it, have obviously chatted to each other and made sure we’ve buried it nicely and taken some good lessons from it. But besides from that now, it’s more about the excitement of having another opportunity to actually do the job. So that’s pretty much where the mind is at the moment.”
Speaking of his own role as an opener in the side, Markram said, “When you’re opening the batting, obviously your responsibility is to get the team off to a good start and get us ahead of the game. So that’s the challenge, that’s what excites us. But when you’re preparing against your bowlers, who are world-class, it can only help you as a batter, as uncomfortable as it can be at times,” he would observe.
“A lot of our series have been two-game series. So in order to win that series, you can’t start slow,” Markram said. There’s no second dip at it, so we’re going to have to make sure we hit the ground running and are nice and sharp come day one. To play in a Test match here is really special and then obviously for it to be a final is probably the cherry on top,” Markram concluded.
