Aiden Markram statement after losing to New Zealand: Aiden Markram blamed his poor batting after the semi-final defeat against New Zealand.

New Delhi: The first finalist team of ICC T20 World Cup 2026 has been decided. New Zealand team defeated South Africa by 9 wickets in the semi-final played at Eden Gardens, Kolkata. In such a situation, now on March 8, the New Zealand team will face the winner of the second semi-final between India and England. This is the fourth time that South Africa has been defeated by New Zealand in the knockout of an ICC event.

With this defeat, South African captain Aiden Markram looked quite dejected. South Africa had not lost a single match before the semi-finals. After the semi-final defeat against New Zealand, Markram said, “I think if you look at the conditions, they bowled very well in the beginning. Full credit to their bowling unit. And when a batsman plays an innings like that, often the match does not go in your favor. So even reaching 170 in such a situation was a good effort to be honest.”

New Zealand had excellent batting in the power play.

Aiden Markram said about New Zealand’s batting, “It often happens in T20 cricket that if the team gets a fast start in the powerplay, the course of the match is decided there. A lot of credit goes to Finn Allen’s innings and Tim Seifert’s innings. They took the match out of our hands very quickly. I thought this wicket would be very good for batting. It was looking very good as well.”

He said, “Maybe we should have tried to reach 190 somehow. Then we could have remained in the match. Obviously we are disappointed with the result, but I am very proud of these players. They have played excellent cricket throughout the tournament. Right now, first of all we have to let our emotions cool down a bit. After that we will sit and talk as a team. After falling in cricket, we have to stand up again and make a comeback. We are very disappointed. Now we have to come back with more strength.” And as a team we have to be better than before.”