Watch cricket video highlights of ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 1st Semi-Final between South Africa vs Afghanistan. Venue of the match will be Tarouba.
Afghanistan’s top order was decimated by South Africa’s quicks, who claimed five wickets in the first five overs, sending the opposition reeling and ultimately finishing at 56 all out in the inaugural T20 World Cup 2024 semi-final. Then, on an extremely difficult Tarouba surface, Aiden Markram and Reeza Hendricks skillfully handled the little chase, despite losing Quinton de Kock early.
This was a resounding and clinical victory for a side notorious for nervous cricket throughout the knockout stages. Nearly nothing in South Africa was left to chance. They fielded brilliantly, bowled superbly, and persevered through some challenging early overs while seizing loose balls. As a consequence, they advanced to the men’s World Cup final for the first time ever and extended their tournament winning streak to eight games. Their command of the game from beginning to end was demonstrated by their nine-wicket winning margin with 67 balls still to spare.
The Tarouba surface provided lots of bounce early on in addition to lateral mobility. With Kagiso Rabada and Marco Jansen playing at such high levels, South Africa had a fantastic offensive to take advantage of the circumstances. Rahmanullah Gurbaz, the batter of the tournament for Afghanistan, was dismissed by Jansen at the end of the opening over as he edged a ball that was angled over him to Hendricks at slip.
With a delivery that darted back into him, Jansen bowled Gulbadin Naib over the gate in his subsequent over. Afghanistan suffered a severe setback after Rabada’s opening over. Twice he jagged two balls back, hitting timber both times. The game-ending ball was the one that struck the upper part of Ibrahim Zadran’s middle stump. At that moment, Ibrahim represented Afghanistan’s greatest chance of achieving a respectable total. With an even more spectacular delivery, he removed Mohammad Nabi’s off stump with the fourth ball. It was a maiden double-wicket over.
Afghanistan was really suffering after losing their top five players and their middle order not producing anything during the event. From then, Anrich Nortje and Tabraiz Shamsi ended the innings. The only Afghan batsman to reach double digits, Azmatullah Omarzai, was caught at deep point by Nortje, who also removed Rashid Khan’s off stump. As the balls raced onto the right-handers, Shamsi bowled a leg-stump line and continued to get them out of position. They went over all three rulings, but the choices made by the on-field umpires stood, and their calls on the effect were sufficient.
Fazalhaq Farooqi and Naveen-ul-Haq had 29 wickets apiece going into this game. They had little hope of protecting a score so low unless they ran through the top order together. In his opening over, Farooqi took two wickets to tie the tournament record, first supplying de Kock with some powerful outswingers before jagging one back in and ruining his stumps. Furthermore, Rashid wasn’t certain enough about the decision to review it, and Naveen ought to have got Markram in the following over, but the majority of Afghanistan’s players were unaware of the thin edge to the wicketkeeper.
Even yet, there were still challenging times as the pitch kept playing up and frequently remaining low. But South Africa’s batsmen would strike first when Afghanistan delivered shoddy deliveries. Thirteen runs, or more than a quarter of the goal, were scored in the fifth over alone. Despite the fact that this was South Africa’s historic triumph, they celebrated with moderation once they reached home in the ninth over.
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