South Africa won every match they could afford to lose in this tournament and then lost the first one that they had to win.
They were completely marmalised by New Zealand, who won the first semi-final by nine wickets. Finn Allen ripped through South Africa’s feared fast bowling attack, and hit an unbeaten hundred off just 33 balls. It was the fastest century in the history of the competition, and, as Allen said himself, the innings of his life. Only two batters have ever hit a faster ton in international T20 cricket.
South Africa’s captain, Aiden Markram, blamed the change in conditions for throwing off his team. “We’ll reflect as a group,” he said. “We’ll let the emotions settle first and foremost and once they do we’ll get back on the horse and try and get better. But we’re obviously hugely disappointed with the result, it feels like we’ve been slapped in the face.”
There were long odds on New Zealand doing any of this. South Africa had won all seven games they had played in the tournament, including a seven-wicket victory with 17 balls to spare against the Black Caps in the group stages. But the odds started to shorten as soon as New Zealand’s captain, Mitchell Santner, won the toss. Of course Santner chose to bowl first, two out of three teams do in T20 games played at Eden Gardens, which meant the South African attack would have to field in the dew.
The New Zealanders were not perfect. They made a couple of cock-ups in the field, one when Rachin Ravindra dropped a simple chance off Markram at midwicket, the other when Glenn Phillips dropped a harder one off David Miller in the deep. And the way they relied on Jimmy Neesham’s medium pace to make up the overs backfired when he conceded 42 from three overs. But South Africa weren’t aggressive or assertive enough to make them pay. They finished with a middling total of 169.
New Zealand, on the other hand, only got more confident as the game went on. The way their openers, Tim Seifert and Allen, set about the vaunted South African fast bowling attack was extraordinary to watch. Seifert and Allen scooped, pulled, cut and crashed 84 runs off the powerplay. By the time Kagiso Rabada finally took his team’s first wicket by dismissing Seifert, New Zealand had 117 off 9.1 overs and the game was as good as done.
The South African batting had struggled to do anything like it. The New Zealand off-spinner Cole McConchie removed both Quinton de Kock and Ryan Rickelton in the second over, which was the one and only he bowled in the match. South Africa were 48 for two after the powerplay when Santner brought himself and Ravindra into the attack and the match took another turn. First Markram and then Miller were caught in the deep trying to hit Ravindra down the ground.
When Dewald Brevis cuffed a catch to cover off Neesham, South Africa were 77 for five with just under 10 overs to go. Tristan Stubbs and Marco Jansen spent the large part of them building a 73-run partnership. They took 22 off Neesham’s third over, but just when it felt as if they might force their way back into the match, Matt Henry shut them out of it again by taking two wickets for just six runs in the 20th over. Jansen was left stranded on 55 from just 30 balls.
Allen and Seifert, on the other hand, didn’t stop to weigh the risks, but set out hitting from the beginning. Seifert took 11 from Jansen’s opening over, and they went on from there. There were a couple of edges that fell just short of the fielders or slipped in between the gaps in the field. South Africa made a mess of their best opportunity when De Kock insisted on calling for a high catch in the deep off Seifert even though Brevis was closer to it, and then failed to hold on to it. Just 11 overs later, Allen finished the game and brought up a famous hundred by taking 24 off five balls from Jansen.
