Finally, the age of Aiden has dawned

One aspect of the SA20 that domestic provincial teams and Cricket SA haven’t learnt properly, is the use of social media and the way it allows fans and the public to connect with the players and teams. 

There was a video posted on Instagram by the Sunrisers Eastern Cape on January 22 that provides that insight that will immediately grab anyone’s attention, even someone not au fait with cricket. It’s a little more than two minutes long and in it, Aiden Markram is delivering a speech to the Sunrisers team after a loss. 

There’s the technical stuff about being 15 to 20 runs short, but what Markram wanted the rest of the players to reflect on was their effort. He praises the fielding, the non-playing members of the squad who brought drinks onto the field and the never-say-die attitude of the players. “To stand on that field and watch how you guys fought is something you can’t teach, it’s something you can’t encourage guys to do, it comes from within,” said Markram. 

There were in other parts of the clip, some “F-bombs” dropped and a declaration that the errors with the bat were not the kind of “shit we should delve into too deeply”. Rather, Markram wanted his players to seek the positives and magnify them. 

Captaincy material? Watch that video and it makes one wonder why it’s taken Cricket SA so long to hand him the reins — for now it will be the T20 side, but once the current World Cup cycle is over, it’s very likely he’ll have the one-day leadership too, putting him firmly in the frame to captain the Proteas at the 2027 World Cup.

That tournament, as CSA’s director of cricket Enoch Nkwe stated on Monday, is the priority for the Proteas and the new head coach, Rob Walter. In Markram they appear to have a captain to the manor born. And yet previous coaches, selectors and administrators have lacked clarity about Markram’s role.

It was as if him being in charge of the 2014 SA under-19 side that won the junior ICC World Cup clouded everyone’s judgment. 

“What do we do now? When do we pick him for the Proteas? Should he serve time playing domestically? How much time should that be? How many runs must he score? Is he ready, will he ever be ready?” 

In 2018, Linda Zondi, the then-chair of selectors, thought Markram was ready and made him captain for a home ODI series against Virat Kohli’s Indian side. It was hardly the most stable Proteas team, with injuries sidelining Faf du Plessis, Quinton de Kock and JP Duminy, while there was still confusion about AB de Villiers’s future, along with the fact that several important components of the following year’s World Cup strategy were unresolved. Markram had played only two ODIs at that point. 

It’s taken Markram this long to get the Proteas captaincy because the first time he got it, it came too soon. 

He is ready now — certainly in terms of the T20 format, where his has been the first name on the team sheet in the past few years. The SA20 and his role at the forefront with bat, ball and as captain of the Sunrisers imbued a renewed confidence in Markram. “It’s not really changed my game too much, but that desperation (to perform well) gets exaggerated quite a bit (when you are captain),” he said during the competition. The extra responsibility of leadership sharpened the senses, but what Markram found was a balance to ensure those demands didn’t become paralysing. 

It’s that kind of maturity, Walter, who worked with Markram in his formative years as a professional player when Walter coached the Northerns Titans, said had stood out and made the decision to hand him the captaincy a logical choice. 

Markram is certainly more comfortable now in his own skin than was the case even two years ago. He’s learnt to live with criticism, to ignore it even by binning social media and in the initial stages of Shukri Conrad’s period as Proteas Test coach, thrived in the support he has received. 

The age of Aiden has dawned — eventually.