Markram goes to opening role for the sake of his power-hitters and that move back to the top has reaped dividends.
It’s safe to say that South Africa is still experimenting with different roles in the T20I team, including that of skipper Aiden Markram, given their relatively youthful playing group. As South Africa prepares for the upcoming T20 World Cup, he is balancing his new role as an opening batsman with leadership and the occasional bowling duty, even though he will play his 200th T20 match against Australia in Cairns.
All-format coach Shukri Conrad decided to elevate Markram to the top of the order after considering the remainder of the lineup, which is (probably) going to be missing Quinton de Kock once more.
“Going through our squads and the players that we’ve got around, we think probably that (opening) is the best fit,” Markram said in Cairns ahead of the third T20I against Australia. “We’ve got some guys in the middle order that are a lot more destructive than myself and we feel probably it’s better off for myself and Ricks to be up top. I did it a bit at the IPL and am starting to do it now again at international cricket. It’s an exciting role. It’s always nice to bat in the powerplay and the focus is to get the team off to good starts.”
Markram performed well in the opening position for the Lucknow Super Giants in the 2025 Indian Premier League, scoring five fifties in 13 innings while keeping his strike-rate at 148.82. Along with striking at 170.28, he has three half-centuries from nine innings of starting for South Africa, however they came in a 2021 series against Pakistan.
The presence of Dewald Brevis at No. 4, Markram’s usual position, is more likely to have impacted Conrad than those T20I figures. Brevis is among those who are “a lot more destructive” than he is, as Markram himself stated, and David Miller is also anticipated to return starting with the England series.
Winning the series and improving South Africa’s bilateral T20I record will be Markram’s main priorities. They recently lost to New Zealand in the T20I tri-series final in Zimbabwe, and they have only triumphed once in their last nine bilateral meetings. Former coach Rob Walter was troubled by that record, even if it was primarily the result of playing with experimental squads.
It’s the same with Markram. When he guided Sunrisers Eastern Cape to consecutive SA20 championships and subsequently South Africa to the T20 World Cup final, his reputation as an inspired skipper was solidified. He has already indicated that he has given himself the objective of going up, and he will now want to support that with his own form.
“The series so far has been good. The bowlers have been pretty good for us. The previous game made our batters look good, but it was very much an individual performance [Brevis hit an unbeaten 125]. So a nice challenge for our batters tomorrow to hopefully click and for them to put on a good score.”