Aiden Markram previews South Africa's t20 world cup clash with Sri Lanka
02/06/2024
Nassau County International Cricket Stadium, Texas, USA
02/06/2024
Nassau County International Cricket Stadium, Texas, USA
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SportsTranscript
00:00 Good day, everyone.
00:03 Thank you for joining us for the first pre-match press conference of the ICC Men's T20 World
00:08 Cup at Nassau County.
00:11 We've got Aidan Markram from South Africa at the top table.
00:15 I will hand over to Lucy, who will then take over.
00:19 Thanks, Aidan.
00:21 How do you look at your chances this World Cup?
00:28 Feeling quietly confident.
00:31 Obviously it's a World Cup, there's some really good teams here, but we feel that if we're
00:37 on our form and playing at our best ability, we're able to compete with anyone here and
00:42 beat anyone here.
00:43 So putting a lot of focus on that in terms of putting focus on ourselves and seeing ultimately
00:51 where it gets us.
00:52 But certainly here to lift the trophy.
00:55 I'm sure every other team is also here to lift the trophy.
00:58 So we'll see at the end of it, but quietly confident that we have what it takes.
01:04 Can you look back at the time when you first got the captaincy for the Proteas in 2018
01:09 and you were yourself a youngster and the team was missing quite a few players?
01:13 And just that experience when you lost both the series to India at home, how was that
01:20 experience like as a captain back then?
01:22 It was fantastic to be honest.
01:25 Completely unexpected obviously getting the captaincy then, but the learning that was
01:30 able to take place from going through that experience of that series was great.
01:36 Obviously at the time it was not ideal, having lost badly, but you look at it in hindsight
01:43 and you almost become grateful for that.
01:45 So like I mentioned, learned quite a bit through that series and had some really awesome senior
01:53 players guiding me while I was out there as well, which sort of helps you grow a lot as
01:58 a captain and as a player.
02:00 Could you just expand on being grateful for that experience?
02:06 I would expect somebody to almost consider it as a chastening experience, maybe even
02:13 regret taking it so early?
02:15 No, never.
02:17 I would never regret taking the captaincy for your national team.
02:24 But like I mentioned, at the moment it was obviously not the best series for us as a
02:29 team but if you look at it in hindsight, that's why I'm grateful because I was able to learn.
02:34 Five years later when you took over the captaincy, how different are you as a captain from then?
02:41 I feel slightly different.
02:43 You learn as you prod along and find out things about yourself that help you ideally be a
02:52 better captain for the team.
02:54 But I haven't gone too far away from my basic values as a person and try to keep that close
03:01 to me over the time.
03:04 You fine-tune your way around things as you get more experience.
03:09 So it has helped me since then, since 2018.
03:15 Even getting to a tournament like this, you're still going to take lots of learnings from
03:18 it.
03:19 One or two big lessons you might have learnt over this period as a captain?
03:24 Back then I was quite young so being able to tell the difference between being a batter
03:31 and a captain.
03:32 So when you're a batter, you're just a batter for the team.
03:34 You can't captain in any way while you're batting.
03:37 So that was one massive learning and then naturally dealing with stuff off the field
03:41 in a more open-minded and calmer way.
03:45 I think when you're young you can get defensive quite quickly but you realise that it comes
03:50 with the territory, it comes with the responsibility of being a captain and taking that on board
03:56 as best you can.
03:57 There's no World Cup where South Africa do not go in as one of the favourites to win.
04:03 But not having won a World title so far, what kind of pressure does it add to you whenever
04:10 you go into a new competition?
04:13 For the time being we're trying to achieve something we haven't achieved before.
04:18 So I don't think that brings too much extra pressure.
04:21 I think it brings a bit more excitement and energy to the team.
04:24 But we'd love to get that first elusive one of course and like I mentioned earlier, I
04:29 believe that we have the team to do so.
04:32 But I don't think it adds too much more pressure.
04:36 But guys are definitely really hungry to get that first one.
04:42 Just about the game tomorrow, a lot of unknown in terms of conditions both on the pitch and
04:48 the outfield.
04:49 How do you prepare for just completely new grounds?
04:54 It's always interesting.
04:57 Definitely on the day you have to assess really quickly and from there develop plans and tactics
05:03 that can hopefully help us do well.
05:05 But if you look at it from a bigger picture point of view it's quite an exciting day.
05:12 Never thought you'd be playing in a World Cup in New York.
05:15 So something to be really excited about.
05:18 And from a conditions point of view we'll have to assess really quickly and hopefully
05:23 that's enough for us to play some good cricket tomorrow.
05:26 Also early morning starts are quite rare, almost never in T20 cricket.
05:31 How do you approach that differently?
05:33 Yeah it is different.
05:35 We're used to mostly playing in the evenings.
05:37 But I suppose we've gotten a bit of a routine since we've been here of waking up early,
05:44 having things to do together as a team early in the morning.
05:47 So I think by now we're pretty used to waking up early.
05:52 I think because you're at a World Cup naturally, once you wake up in the morning you'll be
05:56 switched on immediately because of the excitement and the energy around the World Cup.
06:00 Just finally, it's a bit weird that you're not training at the actual venue before the
06:06 match.
06:07 Any reasons?
06:08 I've got no idea to be honest.
06:12 Training facility, yeah it's a beautiful training facility and we're allowed to do our skills
06:19 work here.
06:20 We're going to get to the stadium a bit later and run around, do some fielding, have a look
06:24 at the pitch and the conditions and stuff like that.
06:27 You would have preferred to be there, right?
06:30 It's hard to say because I'm not sure what's there because I haven't been.
06:34 This facility is incredible to be honest.
06:37 We don't mind training here either.
06:40 Thank you very much.