South Africa have booked their place in a men’s World Cup final for the first time with a dominant nine-wicket triumph over Afghanistan in the T20 World Cup semi-final in Tarouba. The Proteas made it eighth-time lucky after a long stretch of soul-crushing semi-final defeats in men’s global tournaments across all formats to set up a historic decider against India or England.

After Rashid Khan won the toss and elected to bat first on a spicy surface at Brian Lara Cricket Academy, the South Africa bowlers brushed aside any sign of semi-final nerves to skittle Afghanistan for 56 inside 12 overs. Fazalhaq Farooqi briefly lifted Afghanistan hopes with the early wicket of Quinton de Kock (5), but skipper Aiden Markram (23 not out) and Reeza Hendricks (29 not out) took no risks on a sticky wicket to steer South Africa to 60-1 and an emphatic victory on Wednesday.

Afghanistan collapsed to be all out in 11.5 overs and set a new record for the lowest total in a men’s T20 World Cup semi-final, after South Africa immediately had them on the ropes with eight wickets inside the first 10 overs of the innings. There were danger signs early as player of the match Marco Jansen had in-form opener Rahmanullah Gurbaz (0) caught off an outside edge in the first over, then clean bowled Gulbadin Naib (9) in his second.

Kagiso Rabada claimed the wickets of Ibrahim Zadran (2) and Mohammad Nabi (0) in the next over to leave Afghanistan reeling at 20-4 with their top-order back in the pavilion before four overs had been bowled.

Anrich Nortje took his turn in conditions giving the pacers plenty to work with, and picked up the critical wicket of Rashid (8) just as the Afghanistan skipper was setting out to launch a counter-attack. Tabraiz Shamsi later cleaned up the Afghanistan tail to leave South Africa in an ideal position to break their semi-final hoodoo, while Markram and Hendricks then sealed a spot in the decider with the bat.

Markram praised his bowling attack’s “special” performance after the match. “Fortunate to have lost the toss, I guess, we also would have battled,” he said. “But the bowlers still had to get enough balls in the right areas, and made life really tough with the Afghanistan batters.

“One more step. It’s an exciting challenge for us and we’ve never been there before. But it’s nothing to be scared of, it’s an opportunity that we’ve never had, and we’ll be really excited about that opportunity.

South Africa had already won the equal-most matches at the one edition of a men’s T20 World Cup coming into their clash with Afghanistan, and will now head into the final on Sunday undefeated in all eight games and in ominous form. Afghanistan’s campaign comes to an end after progressing to the semi-finals at a World Cup in any format for the first time, but looking tired and ultimately outclassed with a spot in the decider on the line.

“It was a tough night for us as a team,” Rashid said. “We might have done a little bit better than that, but I think the conditions didn’t let us play how we wanted. But that’s what T20 is all about, you need to be very, very mentally ready for any kind of condition and situation. They bowled exceptionally well.

“But overall, quite happy with the way we managed ourselves in pressure situations [in the tournament]. We have seen tough situations and the guys responded quite well and that was, for me, very pleasing along with beating big teams in this competition.”

Source: theguardian.com