"We are certainly here to lift the trophy," Aiden Markram confident of South Africa's chances at ICC T20 World Cup 2024

Aiden Markram feels South Africa “can beat anyone” at the tournament if they play to their best level.

South Africa’s white-ball captain Aiden Markram is “feeling quietly confident” about his team’s chances of lifting the ICC T20 World Cup 2024 title at the end of the month.

The Proteas will kick-start their campaign on Monday against Sri Lanka. They are placed in Group D alongside Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Netherlands and Nepal. It’s a really tough group for all the teams to get out of.

South Africa are not clear favourites to finish in the top two of this group considering their losses to the Netherlands at last year’s World Cup in India and in their group game at the T20 World Cup 2022 in Australia.

If we play to the best of our ability, we can beat anyone: Aiden Markram

The Proteas failed to reach the semi-finals of the last two T20 World Cups under Temba Bavuma. But new, skipper Markram is confident of his side’s chances of not only going past the group phase and the Super 8 but also doing well in the knockout rounds later on.

Speaking with reporters ahead of South Africa’s clash against Sri Lanka in New York, Markram stated, “I am feeling quietly confident. There are really good teams here, but we feel if we find our form and play to the best of our ability, we can beat anyone. We have put a lot of focus on ourselves and we will see where it gets us. But, we are certainly here to lift the trophy.”

The Proteas will play their first three group games in New York before playing a fixture in Kingstown, St Vincent. The USA are hosting a major ICC tournament for the first time. So, the nature of the pitches is not clearly understood by the players yet.

South Africa have picked a good mix of spinners and pacers in their squad. Hence, their skipper is not fretting too much over unexpected conditions.

He said, “On the day we will have to assess really quickly and then adapt plans that will help us do well.”

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