South Africa thrashed Afghanistan by nine wickets to reach the final of the T20 Cricket World Cup for the first time on Wednesday.
After skittling Afghanistan for 56 at Trinidad’s Brian Lara Stadium, the Proteas cruised to their victory target, finishing on 60-1.
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.”
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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.
Rahmanullah Gurbaz, the highest run-scorer at the tournament, and Ibrahim Zadran had been the mainstay of the Afghan batting with three century opening partnerships on their fairytale run to the last four.
Left-arm quick Marco Jansen (3-16) removed Gurbaz for a duck with just four runs on the board in the opening over, however, and returned in the third over to bowl Gulbadin Naib for nine.
There was no respite from the other end as paceman Kagiso Rabada (2-14) found a nice line and length to bowl Zadran and Mohammad Nabi for a couple of runs apiece in the fourth over.
The third quick Anrich Nortje (2-7) chipped in with a couple of wickets and left-arm wrist spinner Tabraiz Shamsi (3-6) mopped up the tail as Afghanistan became the first team to score fewer than 100 runs in a T20 World Cup semi-final.
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