IPL helps Markram make merry

Will many South Africans give the IPL the credit for Aiden Markram's return to form? Unlikely. For some of them the tournament is cricket's Death Star, the thing that is going to kill the game as they know it.

That the conventional pyramid that puts international cricket at the top, and mere franchise leagues below first-class and even list A level, is dated and out of touch with the modern game cuts no ice with these unfortunates. Maybe they haven't noticed the ice is melting under their nostalgia.

Markram has scored four half-centuries in his last six innings for Lucknow Super Giants. He has done so against attacks bristling with Mitchell Starc, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Jofra Archer, Mahesh Theekshana, Wanindu Hasaranga, Mohammed Siraj, Trent Boult, Mitchell Santner and Hardik Pandya.

Only in ICC events can players hope to be tested by opponents of that calibre, and even then they are likely to be able to cash in against minnows. In the IPL, quality is everything. Nationality is irrelevant, Pakistanis excepted.

Before he went to the IPL, Markram passed 50 three times in his last six innings - for South Africa and Sunrisers Eastern Cape. But that was over the course of a month. His successes in India have come in 19 days.

The tournament's busy schedule means players sink or swim. Currently, Markram is doing the butterfly to Olympic standard. He had a strike rate of 155.78 across those four 50-plus innings and hit 60.26% of his runs in fours and sixes.

But this year's IPL hasn't been a launchpad for all the South Africans involved. Going into Friday's game between Chennai Super Kings and Sunrisers Hyderabad at Chepauk, Heinrich Klaasen, Ryan Rickelton, Quinton de Kock and Faf du Plessis had scored one half-century each, and Tristan Stubbs and David Miller none at all.

The mitigating factors are that De Kock's effort was a shimmering 97 not out off 61 for Kolkata Knight Riders against Rajasthan Royals in Guwahati on March 26, and the fact that Du Plessis has had only three innings.

Like most of South Africa's batters, their bowlers are not among the headline grabbers. Marco Jansen leads the pack with eight wickets at an economy rate of 9.23 - some way off the pace being set by Prasidh Krishna and Josh Hazlewood, who have claimed 16 each, and Moeen Ali and his league-leading economy rate of 6.36.

South Africa will need Markram to stay in the runs and Jansen to sort himself out before the WTC final against Australia starts at Lord's on June 11. It also wouldn't hurt if Kagiso Rabada could return to the tournament - he left after only two games to attend to personal issues at home.

The IPL final will have been played 17 days before the WTC final, and there's plenty of opportunity for the narrative to change between now and then. But, more enlightened cricketminded South Africans will hope, may the force of the IPL always be with their players.