South Africa captain Aiden Markram admitted that they performed below their best when they faced Nepal in a thrilling Group D match of the T20 World Cup. On Saturday, the Proteas edged out Rohit Paudel’s side by a narrow margin of 1 run at the Arnos Vale Ground in Kingstown, St. Vincent. Batting first, South Africa posted 115/7, with opener Reeza Hendricks top-scoring with 43 runs in challenging conditions.
Nepal fought hard throughout the chase but ultimately fell short of its goal. Tabraiz Shamsi’s impressive bowling figures of 4-0-19-4 were instrumental in helping his team to a narrow victory from a challenging position. After the match, Aiden Markram acknowledged that his squad would need to improve, despite having managed to cross the finish line against Nepal.
“Although we are grateful to have achieved the victory, tonight we did not perform at our highest level. Over the next few days, we will thoroughly review the match and identify key lessons. Our attacking pace is a strength and we must continue to take advantage of it. If we had bowled in the right zones, it would have been a bigger challenge for the batsmen. In retrospect, adding an extra spinner may have been the smarter choice,” Markram said at the post-match presentation.
Markram also praised Nepal who missed out on a chance to win against a test-playing nation in T20 World Cup history.
“Mainly, we had a tough time because of the way Nepal bowled. They put a lot of pressure on us. Perhaps there was also little faith in our plans,” he continued.
After winning all four of their matches, South Africa ranked first in their group with 8 points and a net run rate of +0.470.
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