South Africa 60 for 1 (Hendricks 29*, Farooqi 1-11) beat Afghanistan 56 (Shamsi 3-6, Jansen 3-16) by nine wickets
South Africa’s quicks ravaged Afghanistan’s top order, taking five wickets inside the first five overs, to send the opposition spiraling towards their eventual 56 all out in the first semi-final of the men’s T20 World Cup 2024.
Then, although they lost Quinton de Kock early, Aiden Markram and Reeza Hendricks calmly navigated the small chase on an exceedingly tricky Tarouba pitch.
For a team infamous for playing jittery cricket in the knockouts, this win was dominant and clinical. South Africa left next to nothing to chance. They bowled beautifully, fielded well, and weathered some difficult early overs, while pouncing on the loose balls.
For their reward, they have their first ever berth to a men’s World Cup final, and continued their unbeaten run, which now is up to eight matches. The margin of victory, by nine wickets and with 67 balls remaining, underscores the control they exerted on this match, from start to finish.
Jansen and Rabada rip out the top order
This Tarouba surface not only offered lateral movement, there was also a lot of bounce early on. With the heights that Marco Jansen and Kagiso Rabada bring to the table, South Africa had a great attack to exploit conditions.
Jansen struck at the end of the first over to remove Afghanistan’s batter of the tournament – Rahmanullah Gurbaz – who edged a ball angled across him to Hendricks at slip. Next over, he bowled Gulbadin Naib through the gate with a delivery that darted back at him.
Rabada’s first over really sent Afghanistan into a nosedive. He jagged two balls back, and hit timber on both occasions. The ball that clipped the top of Ibrahim Zadran’s middle stump was the killer – Ibrahim at that point Afghanistan’s best hope of getting to a good score. Fourth ball, he took out Nabi’s off stump with an even more stunning delivery. That over was a double-wicket maiden.
Nortje and Shamsi do the rest
With the top five gone, and their middle order having failed to produce much right through the tournament, Afghanistan were seriously struggling. Anrich Nortje and Tabraiz Shamsi closed down the innings from there – Nortje had Azmatullah Omarzai (the only Afghan batter to get to double figures) caught at deep point, then later knocked out Rashid Khan’s off stump.
Shamsi bowled a leg-stump line to the right handers and kept getting them lbw, as the balls rushed on to them. They reviewed all three decisions, but the on-field umpires had given them out, and umpires’ calls on impact were good enough.
