T20 World Cup 2021 | Winning the T20 World Cup would be my biggest achievement, says Kagiso Rabada

10/18/2021

South Africa pacer Kagiso Rabada has stated that winning the T20 world cup would be the biggest achievement in his cricketing career. Rabada added that an ICC trophy is what he is missing and the current generation of Proteas players have all the skills to lift the trophy for the first time ever.

ICC T20 World Cup 2021 started on October 17 and South Africa will be looking forward to win their first trophy. South Africa’s record in ICC T20 World Cup has been disappointing. They will play their opening fixture of the tournament against Australia on October 23 but before that they warm up with practice games against Afghanistan and Pakistan on 18th and 20th repsectively.

Speaking about how he feels about the tournament, Kagiso Rabada has said that winning the T20 World Cup will be extremely special.

"That would be extremely special. Hundred per cent - It would be my biggest life achievement in sports, that's what it would be. That would also be one of the highest achievements in cricket, that's what is missing. It would be the icing on the cake. We hope we are the generation that can bring it [the trophy home],” he said.

South Africa have participated in all six editions of the T20 World Cup so far but are yet to lift the coveted trophy. They finished as semi-finalists in 2009 and 2014. The team failed to enter knockout stages in the four editions. Commenting on the past records of the team in tournament, Rabada said that he will prefer not to think much about it.

"I don't even actually like to talk about that and what's happened in the past, happened in the past.I don't want to talk about it too much, we have a challenge in front of us. No one in the past tried to lose games. We are coming in with the same mentality, whether we have baggage or not. I just think it's not worth talking about, it's just worth playing,” he remarked.

Kagiso Rabada was part of South Africa's U-19 T20 World Cup team which won in tournament in the UAE in 2014. Rabada was the second-highest wicket-taker of the tournament with 14 wickets from 5 matches. Rabada is hoping for a similar success with the senior team.

"It feels great. Obviously, there are a lot of good memories from the U-19 World Cup. It would be great to replicate that with the senior team,” he concluded.

Notably, Rabada was rested from his side's first warm-up game against Afghanistan on Monday. The Temba Bavuma-led side won by 41 runs.