JOHANNESBURG: Aiden Markram strengthened his case for being named as the next skipper of the Sunrisers Hyderabad by leading Sunrisers Eastern Cape from the front in the SA20 meet here. Markram memorably led the South Africa Under-19 team to World Cup victory back in 2014, but failed to make a significant mark for the senior side after that.
However, the inaugural SA20 tournament seemed to have brought the best out of him as the 28-year-old ended among the top five run-scorers of the six-team tournament. It was their captain’s 58-ball maiden T20 century that saw Eastern Cape make the final beating Joburg Super Kings in the semifinal.
"It's been a while. I can't actually pinpoint when last I captained full-time, but you definitely feel a bit of extra responsibility. That helps to be honest," said Markram. The SRH captaincy race thus hots up with Mayank Agarwal and Bhuvneshwar Kumar reportedly also in contention.
SRH had been led by eight captains till date namely Kumar Sangakkara, Cameron White, Shikhar Dhawan, Darren Sammy, David Warner, Kane Williamson, Bhuvneshwar and Manish Pandey.
However, in spite of being in line to lead in the upcoming IPL, the middle-order batter is not losing sleep over it. "It would be nice if I get to lead SRH, but that's not the end of the world for me," he stated.
Talking about captaincy role, Markram said, "I had picked up quite a bit while playing under Kane Williamson in SRH. I also admire MS Dhoni and Faf du Plessis as skippers and learnt how to stay calm in different situations," he stated. However, there's no doubt that Markram will remain in SRH's leadership group as he looks forward to bringing to table his experience of leading the Gqebera-based franchise in South Africa. "My role will be to make maximum contribution to the side in whatever role it might be," he stated.
(The writer is in South Africa on invitation from Sports18 and Jio Cinema)
