South Africa skipper Aiden Markram acknowledged that performance was below their best when they faced Nepal in a thrilling Group D match at the T20 World Cup.

On Saturday, the Proteas edged Rohit Paudel’s team by a narrow 1-run margin at the Arnos Vale Ground in Kingstown, St. Vincent. Batting first, South Africa posted 115/7, with opener Reeza Hendricks top-scoring with 43 runs in challenging conditions.

Nepal put up a strong fight throughout the run-chase, but ultimately fell short of their target.

Tabraiz Shamsi‘s impressive bowling figures of 4-0-19-4 were instrumental in helping his team clinch a narrow victory from a challenging position. After the match, Aiden Markram acknowledged that his squad would need to improve, despite managing to cross the finish line against Nepal.

“Although we’re grateful to have secured the win, we didn’t perform at our highest level tonight. Over the next few days, we’ll thoroughly review the match and identify key lessons. Our pace attack is a strength, and we should continue to leverage it. If we had bowled in the right areas, it would have posed a greater challenge for the batters.

In retrospect, adding an additional spinner may have been the wiser choice,” remarked Markram in the post-match presentation.

Markram was also full of praise for Nepal, who missed out on a to win against a Test playing nation in the history of the T20 World Cup.

“Primarily, we had a difficult time because of the way in which Nepal bowled. They put a great deal of pressure on us. Perhaps there was little faith in our plans as well,” he continued.

After winning all four of their games, South Africa took first place in their group with 8 points and a net run rate of +0.470.