xtratime Logo

[caption id="attachment_63174" align="alignnone" width="580"] Proteas ODI captain Aiden Markram with Indian captain Virat Kohli. Image Source: BCCI[/caption] Debasis Sen, Centurion: Proteas captain Aiden Markram graciously admitted that his counterpart Virat Kohli was the difference between the both sides, after they were routed 1-5 in the ODI series. The Indian captain was in sublime form piling 558 runs in the six ODI’s as he led his side to an emphatic series win against the Proteas. “His desperation to win games for his side is massive. That desperation is shown when he bats - he doesn’t just get his side close to the line, he gets them over it, as we saw again tonight. So there are a lot of things I can learn from him. There are a lot of things I can learn from their team as a whole. He made a massive difference. He’s obviously in incredible touch and showing it. His hunger for runs and desperation to finish games is up there with the very best,” said Markram at the post match conference in Centurion on Friday. It was baptism by fire for the young Proteas captain who was up against a very strong Indian team. The Proteas batsmen didn’t had any answers against the Indian spin twins – Yuzuvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav who shared 33 wickets among them in the ODI series. The Proteas captain blamed the batting unit for not living up to the expectation. “As a batting unit we haven’t paced our innings well. Faf did it well in the first game. But since then we haven’t constructed our innings well as a unit. It’s because of pressures to perform, to try level the series, various pressures. I’m a firm believer that as a unit or an individual, once you can feel it once, you get a blueprint and you can go from that. So it’s just one innings away from us as a batting unit, to see who plays what role and gets the ball rolling,” said Markram. The South African ODI captain also admitted they were always under immense pressure to compete with the Indians. According to Markram, “Look there’s a lot of pressure. As an individual, I set high standards for myself, and not having done well this series there was that form of pressure as well. So there are various forms of pressure - captaincy is juatst one of them. But like I mentioned it is pressure I enjoy and I’d like to enjoy it more in the future.”