South Africa’s young batsman Aiden Markram has come back to his national fold after playing in the Indian Premier League for the first time in the UAE and he has all praise for the league as it allowed him exposure to different game situations and opportunities to play alongside and against legends of the format.
Markam opens the batting for his national side but the Punjab Kings have already an established top order comprising of KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal and Chris Gayle and hence he could not get the opportunity to bat at the top of the order. However, he is not sure that it has hurt his chances and preparation for the T20 World Cup which is scheduled to follow the 14th edition of the IPL.
“I'm not sure if it has or hasn't, but it was a great experience. I was in a less familiar role and it was nice to be exposed to that at a high standard of cricket and to learn on the job. To mingle with some seriously good players who do the IPL circuit post-game, chatting to guys who have done well, legends of T20 cricket, was good. It was nice to get some information from them and also to work things out for yourself in the middle of a game,” said Markram.
He referred to numerous close finishes that happen in IPL and especially his team faced in the tournament while drawing a comparison with global tournaments such as the World T20s. He is all but sure about the closely contested world cup and hence said that the stint with Punjab in the IPL where he was exposed to those pressure situations will come in handy for him.
"In T20 cricket, at a World Cup or domestic or international series, results come down to the last three overs if not the last ball. It was good to be exposed to that because I'm sure games are going to go to the wire at the World Cup. It's about dealing with that pressure at the moment when two to three balls could change the whole outcome of the game,” he added.
Markram is not new to high-stakes tournaments as he is the only captain of South Africa to have led the Proteas to a world cup win in the ICC U-19 World Cup in 2014 that was also played in the same venues of UAE. However, he believes that world cups such as the upcoming one are a different kettle of fish as there is more pressure on players to perform amid exaggerated media exposure of the event.
“ The pressure is a lot more. The World Cup is a high-pressure environment, and under all that pressure you need to put performances together as individuals to help the team win. At the Under-19 level, there's not too much of that. At the time there wasn't too much media exposure. There was a lot less pressure on the players to bring a trophy home. You experience the same type of things but everything's a lot more exaggerated at a big World Cup,” Markram added.
Markram did not set the stage on fire in the six games he played in IPL but he did not look out of sorts either. Before coming into the cash-rich tournament, he was in top-notch form for his national side on the tour of Sri Lanka and the Proteas will hope he will continue his golden run of form in the big event as well.