[ad_1]
TALOUBA, Trinidad and Tobago: South Africa crushed Afghanistan’s dream of playing in the T20 World Cup in brutal fashion on Wednesday, defeating the underdogs by nine balls with 11 overs remaining to reach their first cricket final.
Left-arm wrist-spinner Tabraz Shamsi (6 off 3) and lanky fast bowler Marco Janssen (16 off 3) batted first and scored just 56 runs after 11.5 innings, thoroughly defeating Afghanistan’s fragile batting line-up.
Fast bowlers Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje took two runs each to put immense pressure on their opponents at the Brian Lara Stadium in Trinidad.
On a pitch that encouraged all bowlers but left Afghanistan defence weak, South Africa lost Quinton de Kock early in response to Fazalhaq Farooqi’s tournament-leading 17th wicket.
But Reeza Hendricks (29 not out) and captain Aiden Markram (23 not out) guided them to a 60-run win in 8.5 overs and sent South Africa through to Saturday’s final in Barbados, where they will face the winner of the second semi-final between defending champions England and unbeaten India in Guyana on Thursday.
“We assessed the other team’s batting ability very early on so we just had to stick to the plan, keep it simple and get the result,” Man of the Match Jansen said of South Africa’s bowling performance which effectively ended in a contest.
Only Azmatullah Omarzai (10) scored in double figures for Afghanistan and their highest contribution to the paltry total was a wholly dismal 13 points after their thrilling win over Bangladesh to reach the semi-finals at St Vincent’s on Monday.
Afghanistan, which reached its first FIBA World Cup semifinals in this dream tour, has been relying on opening batsmen Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran to provide them with a solid platform while masking weaknesses in the rest of the batting line-up.
– ‘It was a difficult night for us’ –
But when Jansen had Hendricks hit Gurbaz out to the slide for a scoreless over in the first over of the match, the worst fears of the Afghans and their growing supporters in the Caribbean came to fruition as the South Africans ruthlessly exploited their opponents’ technical deficiencies.
“It was a tough night for our entire team, but that’s how T20 matches go,” said Afghanistan captain Rashid Khan.
“You need to be mentally prepared for anything. They pitched really well and we didn’t hit well.”
For Markram, it’s all thanks to himself, as he led South Africa to victory in the 2014 Dubai Under-19 Men’s World Cup.
“I guess I was lucky to lose the toss because we could have hit it as well. But the bowlers still had to bowl the ball to the right area, which they did,” he explained.
“It’s not really the captain who leads the team to this stage of the game, it’s the whole team effort, everyone behind the scenes and off the field.”
This will be the first men’s senior final to be played in South Africa since the inaugural Champions Trophy in Bangladesh in 1998, when Hansie Cronje’s side beat Brian Lara’s West Indies in the title clash.
Afghanistan captain Rashid said his team will look back on their campaign with a sense of pride and confidence for the future.
“We came here before the tournament started and if you told us we were going to play South Africa in the semi-final we would have accepted it,” Rashid said. “We are capable of beating any team.”
“Next time we play a game like this, we will be confident. It’s all about how you control yourself under pressure against a strong team.”
“There is still a lot of hard work to be done, especially in the middle stages… We have had some good results but when we return to the tournament we need to do better, especially with our batting.”
— AFP
[ad_2]
Source link
