South Africa skipper Aiden Markram has claimed that his side would need to be at their best if they have to beat surprise package USA, who feels aren’t a small team anymore. The USA side shocked everyone when they came out of Group A, which included both India and Pakistan. USA defeated Canada in their first game with a fantastic chase before pulling off a big upset over Pakistan via a Super Over.
They then went on to give India a good test and finished behind Rohit Sharma and his men to finish second and reach the Super 8s. Ahead of the Super 8 opener in Antigua, Markram said at the press conference that South Africa will need to be at 100 percent to beat the USA side. Markram said he is excited by the challenge of facing Monank Patel and his men.
Markram was asked if he had followed the USA a lot in the campaign and he said he did catch a few highlights of their game. The Proteas skipper said that the USA team does have an explosive batting lineup, a good seam and spin attack.
Markram said the USA can make things difficult for anyone on their day and they will need to get their plans spot on.
“You haven’t watched much cricket to be very honest with you It’s been it’s been pretty busy, but you catch a few highlights here, and then it looks pretty explosive – so a good seam attack, good couple of spinners and then an explosive batting order that any one of those guys on their day can make life really difficult for you. So, trying to have plans in place to combat that, to keep them quiet ultimately to get them out as well. But again, a fantastic opportunity and exciting challenge for us tomorrow,” said Markram.
USA and South Africa will also have West Indies and England for company in Group 2.
“Yeah, they’ve been really good I think not just them but a lot of the people will sort of say smaller nations, but they’re not and they’ve proved that they’re not anymore. So, we’re going to 100% have to be on our best game tomorrow to, hopefully for things to go well, but I’m excited for that challenge. A team that we haven’t played much cricket against so looking forward to that and different conditions here in Antigua as well so all those things sort of together, we probably have to assess pretty quickly and develop plans out there on the field that can hopefully do the job for us,” said Markram.
