T20 World Cup Preview: Confident South Africa wary of Canada

AHMEDABAD: South Africa go into their T20 World Cup opener against Canada in Ahmedabad on Monday at the Narendra Modi Stadium with renewed confidence after coming close to beating India in the summit clash in 2024 in Barbados and having clinched the World Test Championship (WTC) in 2025 to end a long list of chokes in ICC events. However, captain Aiden Markram said his side still needed to stay alert.

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“It does feel that way at least. The belief, the confidence, the monkey’s off the back. But having said that, I don’t think you rock up here and now all of a sudden and it’s like it’s going to be easy or whatever. We’re going to have to be on it,” Markram said at the prematch press conference.

With associate nations giving a scare to tournament co-hosts India and former champions Pakistan, England and West Indies on the opening day of the tournament, South Africa said they were wary of Canada.

Canada, meanwhile, drew inspiration from the performances of USA, Nepal, Scotland and the Netherlands. Canada captain Dilpreet Bajwa said, “The last couple of games, we watched the associate countries giving a tough time to Test-playing nations.”


Get the latest ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026 updates, including the full schedule, teams, live scores, points table, and key series stats such as top run-scorers and wicket-takers.