Proteas not feeling additional pressure for Ireland T20Is, says Aiden Markram

AFTER the T20 World Cup this winter, the think tank at the Proteas has continued its mission of giving youngsters opportunities in the white-ball teams.

However, this is yet to pay off from a results point of view, as South Africa lost a One-Day International series to Afghanistan last week.

The South Africans were also whitewashed in a three-match T20 series last month in the Caribbean, where a lot of new faces took to the field.

In both series, a few experienced players were mixed in with the youngsters, and T20 captain Aiden Markram has been one of them.

Asked whether they have felt any added pressure to perform as senior players in teams filled with inexperienced players, he said there has been no such feeling in the Proteas group.

“I wouldn’t say (we have felt pressure),” the right-handed batter told the media yesterday ahead of Friday’s first T20 against Ireland in Abu Dhabi.

“We’ll always be highly competitive people as South Africans and as sportsmen. It’s never nice to lose.

“Where things don’t go according to plan, you as a slightly more experienced player look at it a bit deeper, and see how as an individual player (you) could have made a better difference in the game to hopefully change the result.

“Going into the games, I wouldn’t say there’s that feeling of additional pressure. But there’s that feeling of wanting to step up if you have a bit more experience to lead from the front and show the way forward to the guys that are a bit younger.”

South Africa will look to get off to a positive start as they take on Ireland in two T20s and three ODIs, starting on Friday at the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi.

The Proteas have an additional set of new faces, with Matthew Breetzke, Patrick Kruger and Ryan Rickelton joining the T20 side having not been part of the ODI squad that lost to Afghanistan last week.

Markram emphasised that since the series is only made up of two matches, they are likely to give the new guys game time.

After the shocking series loss to Afghanistan, he knows that Ireland are a quality outfit capable of beating any team in the world.

“It goes without saying that they’ve become a really good team in world cricket and are capable of beating any team in the world at the moment,” Markram said.

“The squads are pretty different. We’ve got some guys coming in and joining the T20 side that we’d like to see in the XI and playing.

“It’s only two games, so from an opportunity point of view, I’d like to think that we’d back the same batting unit for the two games.”

After the conclusion of the two-match T20 series, Markram will then fly back to South Africa and thus miss the three-match ODI series that gets under way next week in Abu Dhabi.

Markram told the media that the idea behind him sitting out is so that he can properly prepare for the coming Bangladesh Test series.

And looking at how the Proteas batter struggled in the spin-friendly conditions in Sharjah last week, the move is a good one because Bangladesh also tends to offer spin-friendly wickets.

“We’re looking at how much cricket there is lying ahead for us as the Proteas team. We have a really important Test series against Bangladesh coming up, so it’s basically to get home and start with the red-ball preparation moving into that series. That is the idea behind me missing out on that ODI series,” said Markram.

“It’s balancing time – trying to balance your preparation, especially for a place like Bangladesh, where conditions are really specific. It’s quite tough to keep bouncing from series to series without putting in that specific preparation.

“Fortunately coach Rob (Walter) is good with managing that, and we’ve identified a time for me to go and prepare specifically for the Test series ahead in Bangladesh.”