Former South African speedster Dale Steyn, who retired from the international scene with 439 Test wickets, sees the Proteas’ next all-format captain in star batsman Aiden Markram, who has led the Sunrisers Eastern Cape to become the only team in the SA20 tournament to return. -consecutive appearances in the final.

During the inaugural edition of SA20 last year, Aiden Markram’s Eastern Cape team defeated Wayne Parnell’s Pretoria Capitals by 4 wickets to etch their names forever in the history books of the South African national T20 franchise cricket scene .

Markram-led SEC had finished the league stage in third position with 19 points and had to beat Faf Du Plessis-led Joburg Super Kings by 14 runs in the second semi-final to confirm their place in the final at the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg.

In the 2023 SA20 final, SEC won the toss and elected to bowl first with their players restricting the Pretoria-based team to just 135. Their bowling attack was led by Roelof Van der Merwe who claimed man of the match figures. from 04/31.

In response, Aiden Markram’s side chased down the total within 16.2 overs thanks to Adam Rossington’s 57 off 30, Jordan Hermann’s 22 off 17 and captain Aiden Markram’s 26 off 19. That helped the Sunrisers franchise claim their first franchise league title since 2016 when Sunrisers Hyderabad, then coached by David Warner, claimed the IPL title.

And now, this season, the SEC has performed like true reigning champions, winning 7 games and losing only twice in the league stages. They qualified directly for the final by beating the Durban Super Giants in the play-off match by a margin of 51 runs and will have to do the same once again to successfully defend their title.

While they reached the final thanks to their collective performances, Aiden Markram’s captaincy has also been very good and in this regard, Dale Steyn believes that he is not far away from taking over the captaincy of South Africa in all formats.

“Obviously, from a cricketing point of view, he has a great brain. He is a good thinker. And then he leads very well both with the bat and in the field. that’s the kind of standard he set for himself. He doesn’t just talk the talk. In fact, he leads by example. So yes. If South Africa decide to go with someone like Aiden Markram in the future to captain them, I give him the thumbs up,” Dale Steyn told News18.

“He was able to do that and articulate it very well,” says Steyn on Aiden Markram’s IPL captaincy

Dale Steyn went on to state that Aiden Markram did exceptionally well as IPL captain last year for Sunrisers Hyderabad. Steyn pointed out the fact that not all local Indian players can speak or understand English as fluently due to accents and Markram did particularly well in keeping the players in sync with his leadership.

“A lot of the local players, one of them, don’t speak English very well. And secondly, sometimes they don’t pick up accents that well. So when you speak as a foreign captain, you have to speak almost a little slower, a little louder, more pronounced so that everyone can hear you. And I thought Aiden was able to do that and articulate it very well,” Steyn concluded.