Captain Aiden Markram hits an unbeaten 86 in seven-wicket defeat of New Zealand in Ahmedabad.<\/p>\n
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Published On 14 Feb 202614 Feb 2026<\/p>\n
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South Africa are on the brink of reaching the Twenty20 World Cup\u2019s Super Eight stage after captain Aiden Markram\u2019s storming half-century led them to a dominant seven-wicket victory over New \u2060Zealand, securing their third straight Group D win.<\/p>\n
New Zealand on Saturday suffered their first loss in the campaign after they posted 175-7 as South Africa\u2019s Marco Jansen took four wickets.<\/p>\n
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In response, opener Markram hit four \u2060sixes and eight boundaries in his unbeaten knock of 86 off 44 balls, the highest by a South African captain in the tournament\u2019s history, helping his team reach 178-3 with 17 balls to spare.<\/p>\n
Last edition\u2019s finalists South Africa chose to bowl first in Ahmedabad, India, and it immediately paid off as player of the match Jansen (4-40) dismissed most \u200cof New Zealand\u2019s top order by the seventh over.<\/p>\n
Finn Allen (31 off 17 balls) tried to mitigate the damage after Tim Seifert and Rachin Ravindra fell to Jansen. But Jansen got Allen caught at mid-off in the sixth over, leaving New Zealand struggling at 58-3.<\/p>\n
Mark Chapman (48) and Daryl Mitchell (32) turned things around with a 74-run partnership for the fifth wicket until Jansen got Chapman caught by Ryan Rickelton at backward point in the 14th.<\/p>\n
New Zealand scored only 17 runs in the next four overs until James \u2060Neesham\u2019s unbeaten 23 off 15 balls got them to a fighting total.<\/p>\n
Markram\u2019s magic seals the deal for South Africa<\/p>\n
Chasing 176, South Africa got off to a fast start with Markram hitting three sixes and five boundaries to steer his team to 62-0 in four overs.<\/p>\n
Losing fellow opener Quinton de Kock (20) did not affect Markram, who hit Mitchell Santner for a \u2060six down long-on to reach his half-century in just 19 balls. By the time Rickelton (21) fell in the eighth over, South Africa had already crossed \u2060the 100-run mark.<\/p>\n
With the required run rate falling below six per over, Markram \u2060did not hit a single boundary in the next seven overs and focused on rotating the strike, getting South Africa within 28 runs of victory with 30 balls left.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about managing it through the right phases, I guess, but up front, you\u2019ve seen how teams are \u200ctaking on the powerplay and we\u2019d be silly not to try that. It\u2019s not always going to come off, but when it does, \u2026 we can get ahead of the game,\u201d Markram said.<\/p>\n
David Miller, who scored an \u200cunbeaten \u200c24, cleared the mid-wicket boundary to bring up the winning runs.<\/p>\n
South Africa will conclude their group campaign against the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday, a day after New Zealand play Canada.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Captain Aiden Markram hits an unbeaten 86 in seven-wicket defeat of New Zealand in Ahmedabad. Listen to this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[6074,1724,77,64,63,740,74733,1209,1736,44,1183,588,85],"class_list":["post-481207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-africa","tag-asia","tag-asia-pacific","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-icc-mens-t20-world-cup","tag-india","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-south-africa","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}