South Africa crushed Afghanistan by nine wickets to reach T20 World Cup final, first ever final, at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy Ground in Trinidad and Tobago on Thursday.
It was a first victory in eight short-format World Cup semi-finals going back to 1992 for South Africa, who will now take on the winner of Thursday’s second semi-final between India and holders England for the title in Barbados on Saturday.
The perennial underachievers looked anything but as they ripped through the Afghan batting in less than 12 overs to restrict their shellshocked opponents to their lowest ever score in T20 internationals.
South Africa’s batting has stuttered at times during the tournament and Fazalhaq Farooqi bowled Quinton de Kock early, but Reeza Hendricks and skipper Aiden Markram got the Proteas to their target without further losses inside nine overs.
After dismissing the cricket babes in 11.5 overs, Proteas raced to the target with 67 balls to spare.
“Really chuffed for us to have one more crack at lifting a trophy,” Markram said.
“A lot of our games have been really close and I know there’s a lot of people back at home in the early hours of the morning waking up, and we’ve given them a lot of grey hairs.
“So hopefully this evening was a little bit more comforting for them.”
Afghanistan, playing their first semi-final after a thrilling victory over Bangladesh in their last Super Eight match in St Vincent on Monday, won the toss and chose to bat, were bowled out for 56 runs. Azmatullah Omarzai (10) was the only batter who reached the double figures.
