A young prodigy who shot through the ranks, Aiden Markram was a flamboyant stroke-maker from an early age and rose to fame after he had a dream run as captain of South Africa and led them to the U-19 World Cup title.

However, after being touted as the next 'big thing' in South African cricket, form and consistency deserted him, resulting in more consistent players edging him out for a few years. Injuries did not help his cause and Markram seemed to have lost his spark completely. Like the stereotypical superstar losing his way, he seemed to be seeing an early decline. However, with age on his side, and some tough competition in the national circuit, Markram continued to work on his game to make it to the national team.

An apprentice of Mark Boucher, Markram slowly started to redeem himself at the first-class level and raised his game to a whole new level, averaging over 50 in the 2017 season. After a streak of consistent performances, a virtue that had eluded him in the past, Markram, at long last, made it to the Test fold when he was called up for the England tour in September 2017.

He received the coveted Test cap for the Proteas in the home Tests against Bangladesh and had a dream series, scoring 255 runs in 3 innings and ended the series with an average of 255. In the historic 4-Day Boxing Day Test against Zimbabwe, he exhibited old-school grit and determination against a probing Zimbabwean attack on a seaming Day 1 track, and stroked his way to a chance-less hundred after the pitch flattened out. He started off well against India in the home series in 2017/18 with a 94 in the Newlands Test and laid the platform for victory that helped South Africa regain the freedom trophy.

Nonetheless, in 2019, he made the final 15 cut for South Africa’s World Cup squad at the last minute. He and Reeza Hendricks were both fighting for the back up openers spot and it came to Markram as a combination of his runs in the domestic 50-over competition and Hendricks' failure to score big runs in the national team.

Markram’s performances and all-round impact in limited-overs cricket did not go unnoticed. In 2021, he bagged an IPL contract after he was bought by the Punjab Kings. In the following year, he was bought by the Sunrisers Hyderabad and later the same year, he was drafted into its sister-franchise, the Sunrisers Eastern Cape for the inaugural season of the SA20. That tournament was in many ways the coming of age of Markram the captain. He not only led the franchise to the title but also finished as the tournament’s third-highest run-scorer all while picking up some crucial wickets with ball in hand. Markram’s success saw him being appointed as the skipper of the Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2023 but things didn’t quite go as smoothly as they did back at home for Markram and his side finished at the bottom of the table.