It seems cruel to describe Aiden Markram as an emotional black hole, but also apt. He was asked 14 questions during a long and winding press conference on Friday (June 28) – seven of them tied in different ways to the fact that South Africa had never won a men’s World Cup or even reached a final.
Markram dead-batted every variation on the theme of what reaching at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados on Saturday with the same calm he has shown in guiding his team to eight consecutive wins. He refused to be sucked into the maelstrom that spins around any match that involves India, and which is exponentially heightened before a final.
“We all know India are a great team,” Markram replied to the first of the seven questions. “Us as a team, as South Africans, have been sort of trending in the right direction the last couple of years. But maybe not progressed in tournaments as far as we would have liked.”
What?! Surely there was more to this than that?! You’re in a World Cup final! Against India! Come on man, hit the panic button already!
“You wake up tomorrow and there’ll be a lot of emotions that you’ll feel,” Markram said. “But for the time being we’re just excited at the opportunity and trying not to waste any energy – be it emotional energy or whatever – wondering about what tomorrow could look like. We’ve chatted about taking care of today, and today’s a rest day. So it’s about making sure we sleep really well and spend a lot of time with the feet up, and then take on tomorrow and see where it gets us.”
It was a remarkable state of grace for the leader of a squad of 15 in which nine players know the disappointment of losing a semifinal, Markram included. Quinton de Kock and David Miller have felt that emptiness three times each. Of the XI who went down to Australia by three wickets in the World Cup semi in November, only Temba Bavuma and Rassie van der Dussen are not in the current squad. If your glass is half-empty you would consider that a lot of scarring. Not only is Markram’s glass more than half-full, it has been repeatedly topped up during the tournament.
“It’s the same group of people who have been together for quite some time, and there’s a really strong will to win. But it’s not on the level of desperation. It’s an extreme hunger to win games of cricket. We haven’t achieved on the world stage what we would have liked to, and that gets the juices going – to finally achieve it or try to achieve it at least.
“You’ve seen it in the close results, where we haven’t played some of our best cricket in certain games. But that will to win drives you to, by hook or by crook, get the job done. That’s stood out for me in this group. You win those close games and you take a lot of belief moving forward that from any position you feel like you can still win the game.”
Markram & Co. after South Africa’s first win in a men’s WC semifinal ©Getty
Only the first of South Africa’s victories – over Sri Lanka by six wickets in Nassau County on June 3 – was comfortable until they hammered Afghanistan by nine wickets in their semifinal in Trinidad on Wednesday. The rest have been in the seat-of-the-pants, skin-of-the-teeth category.
They were 12/4 in search of 104 to beat the Netherlands, their bogeymen opponents in the two previous World Cups, on a dodgy pitch in Nassau on June 8 before Tristan Stubbs and Miller shared 65 off 72. Miller needed all of his experience and skill, and nuggety partnerships with Marco Jansen and Keshav Maharaj, to clinch the win with seven balls to spare.
Two days later at the same ground against Bangladesh, Maharaj bowled the last over of a T20I for the first time with 10 runs to play with. Despite sending down a wide and three full tosses, Maharaj got away with conceding six. South Africa won by a single run against Nepal in St Vincent on June 14, when Ottneil Baartman defended eight in the last over. England needed an eminently doable 25 off 18 in St Lucia last Friday, when Kagiso Rabada, Jansen and Anrich Nortje limited the damage to 14.
And so on and so forth. Usually by bowlers on pitches that challenged all who batted on them, and by fine fielding and catching – not least by Markram himself. It’s been a wild ride on and off the field, as epitomised by the South Africans’ journey from Trinidad to Barbados on Friday.
The flight itself lasts a piddling 35 minutes, or shorter than teams spend warming up, and it was due to take off at 10.40am. But a crash landing at Grantley Adams International in Bridgetown halted all air traffic to and from Barbados for hours. So the squad’s arrival, expected at 11.15am, stretched beyond 6pm. It wasn’t the first travel tangle experienced during the past few weeks.
“We’ve had a couple,” Markram said. “And we joke about it and say we’re used to it. It’s been part of this tournament. You’ve just got to crack on with things. There’s no point sulking and making it more miserable than what it might already seem to be. So, it was a slightly longer day. But you bite the bullet. You get there a bit later, you have some food, and you rest your head and wake up with a positive attitude about the next couple of days.”
Unpredictability has become part of a fast-paced routine. Thinking about what could go wrong – which has undone South Africa too many times – would be damaging. This tournament has been about doing, not thinking. And, so far, Markram’s men have done and done well.
“You play a game, you get on a plane, you fly, you check in at a new hotel and play your next game of cricket the next day. So there’s not too much reflection. After the competition we’ll sit back and appreciate what we’ve achieved. Whether you win or whether you lose you’ve gone a step further in the right direction. We’d love to win our first final, and hopefully in the years to come that can break the burden of what a lot of people are saying about us as a team.
“We were a happy bunch the other night after qualifying for the final, but straight after that game in the changing room we said guys, we’ve still got one more step to take. It’s not driven by a coach or a captain. The whole unit feels that and is driven by that. Sportsmen are highly competitive people and nobody would want to lose, and especially not lose in a final. There’s no sense that the guys are satisfied regardless of the result tomorrow.”
All of which was said in the gentle, warm, fuzzy, unassuming tone of someone talking casually to a friend. Not a captain taking a team where they have never yet been, and perhaps beyond even that. Panic? Over-thinking? Under-doing? Try somebody else. And know this: Aiden Markram is a scary man.
