South Africa won by nine wickets against Afghanistan, who had been suffering from emotional exhaustion, at Tarouba in Trinidad and reached their first-ever T20 World Cup final. It happened after they cast away their painful semi-final jinx with an excellent exhibition of pace bowling.
The Afghans will return home with pride after an inspiring run in the tournament. South Africa will play whoever wins the second semifinal between India and England for the championship.
Afghanistan were bundled out for just 56 in 11.5 overs as Marco Jansen (3/16), Kagiso Rabada (2/14) and Anrich Nortje (2/7) tore apart Afghanistan’s top order according to PTI.
Despite losing Quinton de Kock through Fazalhaq Farooqi’s delivery through his legs, Proteas reached 60 for one within 8.5 overs relatively easily.
Reeza Hendricks (29 not out) finally broke away from being called a choker on international platforms whereas Aiden Markram (23 not out), who has never scored above three runs in previous games, led them safely to victory.
To get into these World Cup semi-finals, Afghanistan had to sacrifice much but came into this match with little energy and put up a cowardly effort that looked nothing like the resilience of before.
This problem started when their batting seemed unnaturally shaky facing South African pacemen who conjured up some devilry.
Powerplay reduced Afghans to 28 for five, while they could not recover any further slumping down to their lowest total ever in Twenty20 Internationals.
Their 56 was also the lowest total made during a semifinal match of T20 World Cup tournament.
Back then it was all over for Afghanistan aiming at its premier World Cup final as they collapsed to six for 28. They did not even show a bit of fight.
The Afghans had to blame their batters who were too cautious in a pitch that was more or less dead and only saw the odd ball bouncing.
Reeza Hendricks easily caught Rahmanullah Gurbaz off Jansen’s delivery outside his off-stump while he tried to drive that on the front foot.
Jansen’s next ball was unplayable by Gulbadin Naib, who was completely deceived by it.
Then came two dismissals – one a bowler’s masterstroke, the other two batsmen’s folly.
For Afghanistan, Ibrahim Zadran carried meaning as he stood firm against Rabada, who fired an off-target delivery at him but with enough space between bat and pad for the ball to miss both and jar into his leg stump without shifting an inch of his ground.
Rabada hit the stumps this time round for Mohammad Nabi when they were just three balls into the fourth over.
Nortje joined in after Azmatullah Omarzai sliced stubbs behind backward point where Tristan Stubbs took a catch of him.
Afghanistan’s top three run getters (15 runs) in this ICC showcase, Gurbaz, Zadran and Omarzai scored only twelve runs today.
Witnessing the cartwheeling of the stump that was closest to his legs in the field, skipper Rashid Khan decided to expose all his stumps and make some important runs.
Leg-spinner Tabraiz Shamsi (3/6) removed Karim Jannat and Noor Ahmad from the Afghanistan batting lineup with two wickets in an over.
