Markram confident Sunrisers can bounce back after poor start to SA20 league

Despite losing their first two matches of the tournament, Sunrisers Eastern Cape captain Aiden Markram believes his team can bounce back in an attempt to secure their third straight SA20 title.

In the early stages of the competition, ahead of last night’s match between Pretoria Capitals and Durban’s Super Giants, MI Cape Town were top of the log with two wins, while the Sunrisers were bottom of the table with two defeats.

However, in the inaugural SA20 league season in 2023, the Sunrisers lost their first two games and went on to lift the trophy, and this gave Markram some comfort.

“There’s some peace of mind knowing we’ve been in this position before and we were able to win,” Markram said after their loss to Paarl Royals on Saturday.

“But you want to win games of cricket, whether it’s at the start of the comp or at the back end.

“It’s obviously never nice to lose but there is some confidence we can take knowing that we’ve been in this position before and managed to find a way to win.”

Sunrisers must ‘move on’

With the modern game saturated by a packed fixtures list across all three formats, Markram said players had learned to shake off disappointing performances.

Though nobody liked to lose, he said they had gotten used to moving on quickly, and he hoped his side would be able to do that in their next match against Pretoria Capitals in Centurion on Tuesday.

“You almost get used to dealing with things quickly and moving on,” he said.

“I don’t think you have much of a choice nowadays with the amount of cricket that we play, so you of course pay attention to areas that need attention, but it’s obviously really important to bank that, make notes of it and wake up the next day and either do something about it (in training) or play another game of cricket.

“So on the emotional side of it I think each person’s quite different. I generally try not to get too high when things are going well or too low when things aren’t going well.

“Trying to stay consistent is easier said than done, but you learn to handle things quite quickly and try problem solve as quickly as you can as well.”

Markram finds form

While he admitted he was disappointed with their nine-wicket defeat to the Royals at the weekend, Markram was pleased to get some runs under his belt, top-scoring for Sunrisers with 82 off 49. It was the Proteas captain’s first half-century in his last 27 T20 innings.

“I’ll always say the runs don’t count for much if you don’t get the win, so it’s bittersweet unfortunately, but I’m still grateful to spend a bit of time out there and get some runs.”