Markram confident about South Africa’s future despite T20 World Cup final loss

South Africa captain Aiden Markram is confident in his team’s future after losing the T20 World Cup 2024 final against India which was played at the Kensington Oval, Barbados, on Saturday.

The Proteas fell seven runs short during their 177-run target chase as Indian bowlers, Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya, wreaked havoc in the last few overs and snatched the win from the jaws of defeat.

Markram didn’t have a very memorable tournament as a batter as he could only score 123 runs in nine innings including a four-run cameo in the final against India.

"Hopefully it's one step closer," Markram said after the match. "It's tournament cricket, it's tough cricket, it's not easy to win trophies and you've got to take your hats off to a team like India for lifting the trophy. A lot of hard work goes into it.

"But yeah, we'd like to think we're one step closer and hopefully moving forward we can get that first win and it can be a snowball effect of quite a few to come."

South Africa had the match in their grasp after Heinrich Klaasen smashed Axar Patel for 22 runs in the 15th over but they still ended up losing. Markram found it difficult to identify the moment the match slipped from the Proteas.

"This group's a great bunch of people. In my opinion, they deserve really good things to go their way. I had a really good feeling about this competition before we came here and as the competition went on, that feeling got stronger and stronger,” he added.

"So, pretty tough to deal with now, but it's a sport at the end of the day. Someone's going to win, someone's going to lose. And we'll try to use it to fire us up for future events."

This was the first time South Africa played a T20 World Cup final after reaching the semi-finals in 2009 and 2014.

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