The Indian batsmen rose to the occasion and displayed some timely magic to lead the side to a six-wicket win over South Africa in Dhaka on Friday and in the process set up an all-Asian affair in the final of the ICC World Twenty20. Virat Kohli slammed an unbeaten 72 off 44 balls as India successfully chased down South Africa’s 172-4, reaching 176-4 with five balls to spare.
They will face Sri Lanka in Sunday’s final in a re-match of the 2011 World Cup final, which India had won by six wickets.
South Africa never lost a T20 International in which they posted a 170-plus total and given the trend in the last few matches of this tournament, they were favourites to protect the record half-way through the match.
But the Indian batsmen always kept the chase simple, without allowing the South African bowlers to put any kind of pressure on them.
Rohit Sharma gave the 2007-champions a rousing start with 24 off 13 balls and Ajinkya Rahane also marinated a decent scoring rate in his 30-ball innings of 32 runs, but the most vital innings came, as usually, from the bat of Kohli.
The latest poster boy of Indian cricket batted with ease and hit a four or two whenever the pressure seemed to creep in.
AB de Villiers took a brilliant catch to separate him from Yuvraj Singh, who made 18 off 17 balls, as South Africa sensed a glimmer of hope.
But joining with Kohli, Suresh Raina took the game India’s way, taking 17 runs from a Wayne Parnell over. When Beuran Hendricks ended his onslaught of 21 from 10 balls, it was too late for South Africa to make a comeback into the game.
The South Africans had the destiny under their control putting up a total that no other team could go even nearer against India in this tournament.
Francois du Plessis led the side from the front balancing his shots against the Indian spinners, who were highly impressive throughout the tournament.
They looked threatening in this game too, particularly Ravichandran Ashwin, but du Plessis showed they are not unplayable.
He initially paid them their deserving respect, taking singles and doubles to carefully pace his innings. The right-hander scored his first 30 off 29 balls and did not hit the first six of their innings until the 13th over.
He took just seven balls to score his next 20 runs and complete his fifty off 36 balls.
Amit Mishra bore the brunt of his attack, conceding 17 runs in his second over as South Africa finally began to improve their scoring rate.
Ashwin bowled du Plessis, who made 58 off 41 balls, but Jean Paul Duminy and de Villiers drew confidence from their skipper and continued their sensational batting.
Ashwin earlier got a wicket in his first over that helped India stop South Africa’s initial charge led by Hashim Amla.
Opting to bat first, South Africa showed their intent in the first over when they had 10 runs on board.
India, however, managed to get a wicket as an inside edge from Quinton de Kock’s bat perched in MS Dhoni’s gloves.
Amla hit back with 22 from 16 balls before Ashwin struck in his first legitimate ball of the innings.
India began operating with spinners from both end immediately forcing du Plessis and Duminy to aim for protecting their wicket.
The South African duo were successful in doing that adding 71 runs for their third-wicket stand, with a decent run rate of 8.19.
Following du Plessis, Ashwin struck again to remove de Villiers to finish with 3-21.
Duminy and David Miller continued to bat carefully, waiting for the bad balls to hit for fours and sixes and they were successful in their strategy, scoring 43 runs for the unbroken fifth-wicket stand.
Duminy stayed unbeaten on 45 facing 40 balls while Miller chipped in with 23 off 12 balls.
-With New Age input
