Proteas batsman Aiden Markram has expressed his desire to be the next captain of the South African Test team, saying he ‘would love’ to be the new leader.
Faf du Plessis’ resignation as captain in February has led to great deal of speculation and analysis on who will be granted the new responsibility, especially after CSA announced that Quinton de Kock will only captain the limited-overs teams.
Markram, who has captained the Proteas ODI team in the past, is one of a number of players in the frame to replace Du Plessis with Dean Elgar, Temba Bavuma, Rassie van Der Dussen and Keshav Maharaj emerging as other possible candidates.
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‘From a personal perspective, I really enjoy captaincy. I enjoy the responsibilities that come with it. I have been able to watch from franchise captains to a guy like Faf and it is just something that I would love to do,’ said Markram.
The 25-year-old Markram, who has not played for the Proteas since the first Test against England in December, is not getting ahead of himself, though, as he tries to rediscover his form after another lengthy injury layoff.
‘It is just nice to be considered and I would give an absolute arm and a leg to be able to do it, but in the same breath I don’t want to become desperate about it. I would thoroughly enjoy it and be honoured if it were the case, but I have not looked too much into it,’ Markram added.
‘It’s one of those things where if it were to happen it would be amazing. but if not there is plenty of good leaders within the environment that will definitely take the team forward along with the management.’
The right-hander captained the South African U19 team to World Cup victory back in 2014 under the management of Ray Jennings.
He has since then made 20 Test appearances for the Proteas but after a difficult past 12 months, where he struggled with scoring runs at times, Markram caused an infamous self-inflicted hand injury during a disastrous tour to India last year.
Breaking his thumb during the first clash with Joe Root’s team in Centurion also didn’t help his cause, but he did manage to make a swift recovery and performed well with the bat for the Titans in the recent Momentum One-Day Cup.
