Proteas batters are peaking at the right time before T20 World Cup

The Proteas batters are all peaking at the right time in the run-up to the T20 World Cup.

Between October 2022 and December 2025, Proteas skipper Aiden Markram had gone 35 T20I innings without a half-century in the format.

After an exhibition of effortlessly clean ball striking against West Indies in their opening T20I, which South Africa won by nine wickets, he looks back to his very best form.

Markram struck a career-high 86 runs off only 47 deliveries in a knock that included nine fours and three maximums.

This knock follows the opening batter’s stylish 108 off 58 balls he struck for Durban’s Super Giants in their final SA20 match against Paarl Royals.

“It’s exciting to see Aiden in such good form,” Proteas spinner George Linde said. “The way he bats, the way he makes it look easy – his shot selection is incredible. He’s an exceptional leader and we all follow him.”

Markram’s form at the top of the order will be integral to the Proteas’ success at the T20 World Cup, which starts on 7 February in India and Sri Lanka.

But he’s not the only batter who has hit a rich vein of form just before the global showpiece.

Destructive Dewald

The form of Dewald Brevis can single-handedly determine the success of a side and right now he is in sparkling form.

In the SA20, his Pretoria Capitals side won only one of their first five matches this season.

There was one no-result and he had failed in the other three (six off six, 12 off five and eight off 13).

In the match they won, against MI Cape Town, Brevis clubbed 36 off 13 deliveries.

Alongside West Indies’ Sherfane Rutherford, he then dragged them along to the final. First rescuing the side from seven runs with five wickets down with a mature 53 off 47 deliveries to down Joburg Super Kings.

Then a brutal 75 off 38 balls in the qualifier to help his side to the final before almost solely hauling the Capitals to a competitive total by scoring 101 (off 56 balls) of his team’s 158 runs in the final, which they eventually lost to Sunrisers Eastern Cape.

Those three knocks came in three successive crunch matches.

“He oozes confidence,” Shai Hope, West Indies skipper and Brevis’s teammate at the Pretoria Capitals, said of the 22-year-old. “He’s one of those characters that feels he can get the job done in any situation at any time.

“He has natural talent and ability. Since we are teammates, I actually want to see him doing really well in the future, but hopefully not too well in this series.”

Solid top four

Brevis, who will bat at four for the Proteas, ended the SA20 season as the second-highest run scorer of the campaign.

Sandwiched above and below him are two southpaws who lit up the season. Ryan Rickelton was a late replacement in the T20 World Cup squad as Tony de Zorzi didn’t recover from his hamstring injury sufficiently.

Rickelton led the run-scoring charts for a large part of the SA20 season, but after Quinton de Kock and Brevis’s teams made the playoffs and his MI Cape Town side did not, they had the chance to pass his tally.

Rickelton smashed two centuries this season and has been striking it sweetly, despite the form of his side. He will be a direct replacement for De Zorzi at three while De Kock, who ended his campaign at the top of the tree for runs with 390 with a strike rate of 148.85, proved that he’s still among the best white-ball batters around.

With De Kock, Markram, Rickelton and Brevis as the Proteas’ top four, form is no issue heading into a tournament South Africa will be eager to clinch for the first time. DM