Sunrisers captain Aiden Markram said he was delighted with his team’s “fight” and “character” after they defeated the Pretoria Capitals by four wickets in the inaugural SA20 final at the Wanderers on Sunday.

Starting the SA20 season with two losses against the Pretoria Capitals, the Eastern Cape Sunrisers looked like a side just making up the numbers in the league. However, consistency and character have seen them crowned champions.

The Sunrisers started their campaign in the worst way possible, succumbing to two defeats at the hands of the Capitals in their opening matches of the campaign.

Looking to redeem themselves, they quickly bounced back and turned their season around by defeating MI Cape Town twice before wins in Paarl and Durban, and the semi-final secured their spot in the showpiece. What impressed Markram the most was how his team recovered, displaying character and passion throughout.

“I’m very proud; we had a bit of a tough start to the competition, but to bounce back the way we did was great,” said Markram after the game.

“We had a huge turnaround in our season; having lost the first two games, we needed characters to be out there on the field and lead the fight.”

“The biggest thing for us as a team was to have that passion and desperation to win.”

The Eastern Cape team was arguably the only one without a star-studded lineup. However, that didn’t put too much pressure on Markram, who admitted that assistance from the management made his job as a skipper a lot easier.

“A lot of credit must go to the coaching staff, they made life a lot easier for myself, and the players reacted well to whatever was asked of them.”

“It’s an enjoyable job to have (captaincy role), and it’s quite humbling at times, but we continue learning and trying to get better,” he added.

The 28-year-old finished the season with a total of 366 runs, third on the top-run scorer list. He also had an enjoyable campaign with the ball, claiming 11 wickets in his 10 innings. He revealed the strategy he used to overcome a poor run of form and eventually win the player of the season award.

“I suppose you go through a lot of ups and downs in this game, especially as a batter.”

“It’s quite hard not to become outcome-driven because you score runs to stay on the team.”

“I’ve just tried to take “outcome” out of my game and develop options and commit to those options; if it doesn’t work, then it’s part of the game; but not wanting things too bad and being outcome-driven has made a slight difference in maybe the last few months or year,” he ended.