Clinical Proteas storm into T20 World Cup final

Aiden Markram became the first South African cricket captain to lead the Proteas to the promised land of an ICC World Cup final, to be played tomorrow in Bridgetown, Barbados.

In a one-sided semi-final at the Brian Lara Stadium in Tarouba, Trinidad and Tobago, South Africa scored 60 for the loss of one wicket in 8.5 overs to blow out Afghanistan for 56 all out, their lowest total in T20Is, in 11.5 overs.

After 32 years and seven failures at the semi-final stage or earlier at T20 and one-day cricket World Cups, the South African Proteas at last shook off the curse of yesteryear when they demolished Afghanistan by nine wickets.

They are now one match away from becoming the first team to win the ICC T20 World Cup with an undefeated record.

The Proteas were clinical, to say the least. However, when skipper Rashid Khan opted to bat first after winning the toss, the commentators constantly blamed the pitch for their mounting problems. They forgot that the Proteas still had to bat on the same pitch that they had described as bad, terrible and spicy.

The Protea bowlers were all devastating and fast bowlers set the tone. The Afghan batters had no answers to their accuracy when they had the batting team against the ropes with 28/6 in 6.3 overs.

Marco Jansen (3 for 16 runs in 3 overs), Kagiso Rabada (2/14 in 3, 1 empty), Anrich Nortjé (2/7 in 3), Tabraiz Shamsi (3/6 in 1.5) and Keshav Maharaj (0/6 in 1) were all unplayable.

Jansen struck with his fifth delivery in the first over when he got the wicket of the dangerous opener Rahmanullah Gurbaz for a duck. From there on it all went south for the batting side after Gurbaz, who had scored 43 against Bangladesh and 60 against Australia, was caught by Reeza Hendricks.

Rabada, with the first and fourth deliveries of his first over, clean bowled the equally potent Ibrahim Zadran (2) and number five Mohammad Nabi for a duck.

Jansen bowled number three Gulbadin Naib (9) and Nortjé bowled Afghan captain Rashid Khan for 8.

Shamsi got three leg-before decisions, bagging the scalps of number seven Karim Janat (8), number nine Noor Ahmad (0) and batsman ten Naveen-ul-Haq (2) to finish Afghanistan off in no time.

Azmatullah Omarzai with 10 runs top-scored for his side.

Quinton de Kock lost his wicket when Fazalhaq Farooqi, the tournament’s leading wicket-taker (17), bowled him for five runs.

Hendricks (29 not out off 25 balls, 3x4, 1x6) had the honour to hit his team’s winning runs with a four from Azmatullah Omarzai.

Markram with 23 not out (21 b, 4x4) led his side with calmness and a cool level head that kept his side ahead of Afghanistan.

Grateful to make history for his country, Markram paid tribute to those who were unable to overcome the hurdle in previous tournaments.

"They were guys that are legends of the game, legends of South African cricket. In my eyes, it doesn't matter if they made a final or not, because they inspired all of us to play cricket for South Africa.

"Because of them, we're trying to represent those people that have played before us, so we're glad we've made them proud, (and) to an extent I still feel we've got one more step left," Markram said.