As South Africa remain undefeated going into their semi-final matchup with New Zealand, coach Shukri Conrad stated on Sunday that the team has embraced its favorite moniker in the T20 World Cup.
In their most recent Super Eights match, South Africa, who finished runners-up in the 2024 edition, defeated Zimbabwe by five wickets to become the only undefeated team in the competition.
With the exception of one close match against Afghanistan, South Africa, who are sometimes referred to as “chokers” for failing in the knockout stages of major international championships, have played dominant cricket in this edition.
In the first semi-final in Kolkata on Wednesday, their opponents, New Zealand, are still the underdogs after sneaking into the knockouts with a higher net run-rate than Pakistan.
“There’s always pressure and it’s really about embracing that pressure. And we don’t do things any differently, we’re gonna prepare exactly the same way for New Zealand whether we start as favourites probably because we’re the only unbeaten side in the competition. I always felt that as a South African team you want to be able to play as a favourite and because it’s easy being an underdog you know the expectation isn’t great,” AFP quoted Conrad telling reporters.
In their first two Super Eights games, Aiden Markram’s South Africa defeated reigning champion India and the West Indies in two decisive victories. Conrad claimed that even though South Africa lost to India in the Barbados T20 World Cup final two years ago, the experience was priceless.
“I think our experience in the last T20 World Cup will stand us in good stead. And I’ve said this many a time previously, if you continue to make semi-finals and finals eventually you’re going to win one. But if you don’t make it, you can’t win anything,” said Conrad.
South Africa won their first major International Cricket Council trophy in June 2025 when they defeated Australia in the World Test Championship final, although they are yet to win a World Cup in the white-ball format.
With 268 runs, including three half-centuries, at a punishing strike rate of 175.16, Markram has led the team from the front. Conrad commended Markram for leading a well-trained team.
“Aiden has been fantastic both with bat in hand as well as a captain. But he is only as good as his troops and he’d be the first one to admit that. So it’s easy to captain a bowling unit that’s on top of their game and batters that are firing but Aiden’s… been at the forefront of everything that we do,” he said.
