South Africa enters into Finals after 18 world cups and wait of 32 years. Beating Afghanistan by 9 wickets on Thursday, South Africa finalized its spot in the 2024 T20 World Cup Final.
In the first Semi-Final match scheduled on 27th June at Brian Lara stadium in the west Indies, South Africa took down the playing 11 of the Afghanistan at an score of 56 all out. And won the Semi-Final match by 9 wickets chasing down 57 in just 8.5 overs.
South africa pacers won it all for the team single handedly bringing the Afghanistan fairy tale to end while breaking own team curse leading them to Finals after 32 years.
South African Pace Attack Afghanistan in Record-breaking Display
South Africa’s bowlers dominated Afghanistan at the Brian Lara stadium. Bowling out Afghanistan for just 56 runs in 11.5 overs – their lowest score in this format. Marco Jansen (3-16), Kagiso Rabada (2-14), and Anrich Nortje (2-7) took seven wickets between them, while Tabraiz Shamsi added three more to quickly end Afghanistan’s innings. Despite the pitch being challenging and low scoring, Africa’s chase was easy, which they won by nine wickets with 67 balls left.
SA vs AFG Semi-Final 1 World Cup
Fighting against each other in the semi final, Afghanistan won the toss and opted to bat first. Batting down the lane, the magical spell of Afghanistan was broken by the fiery spell of African pacers.
Afghanistan managed to score a total score of 56 runs in 11.5 overs with all team out of the pavilion. None of their batsmen, who were in the semi-finals for the first time, could stand up to the South African bowlers for long, leading to a very low total.
Afghanistan’s opener Rahmanullah Gurbaz, along with Mohammad Nabi, Noor Ahmad, and Fazalhaq Farooqi, were all out without scoring. Other players like Ibrahim Zadran (2), Gulbadin Naib (9), Azmatullah Omarzai (10), Nangialai Kharoti (2), Karim Janat (8), and captain Rashid Khan (8) also didn’t score much.
Batting for Africa quinton De Kock wicket came handy where he onlymanged to score 5 runs and was dismissed by Afghanistan’s Fazalhaq Farooqi. Leading the chase further, Captain Aiden Markram scored 23 runs to help South Africa reach the final, while Reeza Hendricks scored the most with 29 runs.
South Africa and T20 World Cup:
After a win against Afghanistan, South Africa has secured their first entry to Men’s maiden world cup Final because they’ve never made it to the final in the ICC World Cup ODI and T20 formats. In the past, they’ve reached the ODI semi-finals five times (1992, 1999, 2007, and 2023) and the T20 World Cup semi-finals twice (2009 and 2014) but never got to the final.
In the ongoing T20 World Cup Africa has won all its matches and have been undefeated, unbeaten the whole of the tournament and now finally made it to the final of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup aiming to win their first ever title.
The Proteas team will now face the winner of semi-Final 2, in the finals at Barbados, and will fight for their maiden Title.
