Even at his best, Aiden Markram is not the most
expressive player on a cricket pitch. He prefers to maintain balance. Rassie
van der Dussen isn’t all that unique. However, on Saturday in Delhi, when they
celebrated their hundreds, the pair and Quinton de Kock let their emotions
show. Nobody who was watching missed Markram’s display of emotion, and it
wasn’t just because he had just scored the fastest century in World Cup
history.
“Yeah, it’s quite strange because you almost get
this thing that just takes over your body at certain moments,” Markram
said when asked about the unusual reactions on show. “I think there’s a
lot of passion in this team to give our absolute all at this World Cup and see
how far it can get us. We’re known to start pretty slowly, be it in a series or
maybe world events and things like that, so we put a lot of emphasis on today’s
game; to start well and play the same cricket we’ve been playing that’s managed
to sneak us into this competition.
“So I think it’s all of those emotions sort of
mixed up and building up. That sort of just comes out and a lot of pride
naturally for the three of us as well. When it’s your day, try to cash in and
really make it count. So a mixture of quite a lot of things I would say.”
Later on in the evening, Kusal Mendis, who blitzed his
way to 76 off 42, briefly threatened to break Markram’s record for the fastest
century in World Cups, which has only been held for a short time. Because of
this, Markram is not treating this as any sort of warning signal for the rest
of the field.
“I’m actually not too sure,” Markram said
when asked if they had sent a message to the others. “The way batters are
playing nowadays, you wouldn’t be surprised if that record is broken in this
competition as well. So it’s nice for us to be able to go through the gears as
a unit.”
One potential drawback for South Africa was that de
Kock didn’t take the field at all during the run chase, seemingly due to cramps
after batting in the hot and humid Delhi afternoon. Heinrich Klaasen took the gloves
in his absence. But captain Temba Bavuma was certain there was nothing to worry
as such. “I think he’ll be fine,” he said at the post-match
presentation. “He obviously didn’t take the field today. [But] I think
Quinton will be fine.”