Aiden Markram mentioned that South Africa didn’t play their best game when they played against Nepal in a very exciting match in Group D of the T20 World Cup. On Saturday, the South African team, also known as the Proteas, won by just 1 run against Nepal’s team, led by Rohit Paudel, at the Arnos Vale Ground in Kingstown, St Vincent. When they were told to bat first, South Africa made 115 runs and lost 7 players, thanks to Reeza Hendricks who scored 43 runs in difficult conditions.
Nepal mostly stayed in the race during the chase but didn’t quite make it. Tabraiz Shamsi did very well, taking 4 wickets for just 19 runs in 4 overs, and helped his team win when it seemed like they might lose. After the match, Markram mentioned that his team wants to improve because they barely managed to win against Nepal.
Really thankful for the victory, we didn’t play our best tonight. Looking back at the game in the next few days, we’ll find many things to learn from. We have a strong fast bowling group and we should trust them. I believed that if we bowled in the right spots, it would be tough for the batters. Thinking about it now, we probably should have chosen another spin bowler,” Markram mentioned during the post-match interview.
Markram also complimented Nepal, who didn’t manage to get their first win against a Test nation in the T20 World Cup.
“Most importantly, Nepal’s bowling was very challenging for us. They put a lot of pressure on us, and perhaps we didn’t have enough confidence in our strategies,” Markram said.
Thanks to the victory, South Africa ended up at the top of their group with 8 points and a net run rate of +0.470, having won all 4 of their games.
