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South Africa's left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj called opener Aiden Markram a "big-match player" as the latter scored a century during his outing in the World Test Championship (WTC) Final 2025 against Australia at the Home of Cricket, Lord's in London on Friday.
Markram (102* runs off 159 balls) scripted history by becoming the first Proteas batter to score a hundred in an ICC tournament final. He also became the fourth batter after Jacques Kallis (113* against Sri Lanka in the 1998 ICC Knockout semifinal against SL), Herschelle Gibbs (116* against India in CT 2002 semifinals), and David Miller (101 against Australia in the World Cup 2023 semifinal) to hit a century for SA in ICC knockout matches. Speaking at ICC Digital after Day 3, Maharaj said, "I saw a different sort of desire and focus in Aiden's eyes today when he came off the field (prior to batting) as I think he wanted to rectify the mistake that he made in the first innings." "Kudos to him to put that into place. He's a big match player and big players rise up to the moment and rectify their mistakes very quickly. There's no better fitting moment for him to get a Test hundred here at Lord's in a final against probably a team that I don't think they've ever lost a final," the Proteas cricketer added. Maharaj also paid tribute to captain Temba Bavuma (65* runs from 121 balls), after his captain showed enormous determination to battle a hamstring injury and played a vital role in the unbeaten stand of 143 that has South Africa close to victory. "He had a little bit of a niggle, but the warrior and fighter that he is was there with Aidan to support it. It was amazing to hear how they complemented each other when they came off at the tea break, just hearing about how they're going to go about their business and understanding that obviously Temba can't run at full tilt, but Aiden embraced that," the 35-year-old player concluded. (ANI)
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