south africa captain Aiden Markram He admitted that on a night when New Zealand’s national cricket team stormed into the T20 World Cup final with an emphatic nine-wicket win at the Eden Gardens, his side barely suffered.New Zealand take lead with stunning 33-ball century find alanthe fastest hundred in T20 World Cup history, as they equalized 170 in just 12.5 overs. For Markram, the damage was done early.“I think you saw things early on and they bowled really well up front. Ball didn’t really want to come on and some guys just stopped at the wicket and some guys were hitting the bat very low and they made it very difficult to score runs and through that pressure you unfortunately lose wickets,” Markram said.He praised the New Zealand bowling team for squeezing his team in the powerplay, with scoring never going smoothly. “So credit to their bowling unit, obviously with the bat, for someone to play an innings like this, don’t think you’re going to be on the right side of the result as a fielding team many times.”South Africa ended up with 169 for 8, mainly due to Marco Jansen’s unbeaten 54 off 30 balls and Tristan Stubbs’ crucial performance after the team fell to 77 for 5. Markram thought there was still hope at half-time.“To be fair, it was a massive effort to get to 170. At the halfway point we really felt like we had a whiff,” he said.With Allen and Tim Seifert Shred the bowling ball. “But, as is the case in T20 cricket… (in) the powerplay, they unfortunately couldn’t protect every boundary and unfortunately they got away and then it was really hard to pull it back from there.”Markram paid special tribute to the openers who killed the match in the first six overs. “So we give a lot of credit to Finn Allen for his knock and Tim Seifert’s knock for killing the game early and yeah, unfortunately tonight was a bad night for us.”Reflecting on what could have been done differently, the captain suggested that a quicker tactical adjustment with the bat might have helped.“It’s hard to say now. We will reflect on it as a team. I think we expect the wicket to be batted really well. It looks pretty good so maybe just get used to the bat a little quicker and then go back to maybe a more old school approach of setting it up and trying to climb to 190 and maybe you’ll get into the game from there. “Despite the disappointment of not reaching another final, Markram stood firm behind his team. “So, yes, we’ll be reflecting as a team. Obviously disappointed with the result but very proud of the group of guys who played some really good cricket throughout the tournament and it was an unfortunate night indeed.”
