South Africa have marched on towards a semifinal date with New Zealand in immaculate style after making it seven wins out of seven at the T20 World Cup.
The Proteas rolled over Zimbabwe by five wickets at Delhi’s Arun Jaitley Stadium, not even needing anything like their Sunday best to deal with the best that the consistently excellent opposition skipper Sikandar Raza could throw at them in their final super-eight match.
The 39-year-old veteran allrounder Raza, who had already inspired Zimbabwe to victories over Australia and co-hosts Sri Lanka during the tournament, shone once more, cracking 73 off 43 balls to drag his side to a respectable 7-153 and then troubling the Proteas by taking 3-29 with his crafty spin.
But ultimately, even his heroics weren’t enough as the Proteas got to their target on 5-154 with 13 balls to spare to keep up their perfect record in the tournament.
It has set up a semifinal with New Zealand’s Black Caps at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens early Thursday morning NZT, while England will play India the following day at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium.
“Exciting … the boys will be up for it,” said South Africa captain Aiden Markram, who is determined to go one better than in 2024 when his men lost in the final to India.
It is rare that a player on the losing side lands the man-of-the-match award but Raza’s display was a monumental one in defeat and thoroughly merited the accolade after he hit eight fours and four sixes in his backs-to-the-wall knock before dismissing key men Aiden Markram, Quinton de Kock and Dewald Brevis.
Taking on the responsibility of opening the bowling, Raza got de Kock caught behind for two-ball duck, bowled Markram for four and later lured the dangerous Brevis to his doom, getting him caught in the deep for 42 off just 18 balls.
That left South Africa, despite a brisk 31 from Ryan Rickelton, under real pressure at 5-101, only for an unflustered and unbroken partnership of 53 between Tristan Stubbs (21no) and George Linde (30no) to guide the Proteas home with no further alarms.
Asked about his award after becoming only the second player ever to score over 70 and take three wickets in the same T20 World Cup match, Sikandar smiled ruefully: “I shouldn’t be here – I’ve never got man-of-the-match for losing the game.
“But we can hold our heads high; we’ve improved with every game we’ve played. We’ll take these valuable lessons, go home and hopefully come back stronger and better. I couldn’t be any prouder of the boys.”
Markram admitted: “Would have loved it to have been a bit more clinical with the bat, but it’s probably not the worst thing that the middle-order was put under a bit of pressure and came through.”
India play England in the other semifinal on Friday morning.
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