Credit: X
On Wednesday, June 26, South Africa defeated Afghanistan by nine wickets in the first semifinal of the T20 World Cup 2024, to reach the final of the tournament for the first time in history at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy in Tarouba. South Africa restricted Afghanistan to a 56-run total before chasing it down with 67 balls to spare, sending the social media platform X into a frenzy at what they just witnessed.
Notably, after winning the toss, Rashid Khan, the captain of Afghanistan, won the toss and chose to bat, but nothing went the way of his team in their batting innings. Marco Jansen picked up the key wicket of the in-form Rahmanullah Gurbaz, who didn’t trouble the scorers, in the first over, and from that point onwards, it all went downhill for the Afghans.
Only Azmatullah Omarzai got into double figures for Afghanistan, top-scoring for them with just 10 runs. The likes of Marco Jansen and Tabraiz Shamsi picked up three wickets each, while Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje took two wickets each for South Africa.
In the run chase, South Africa lost the wicket of Quinton de Kock early for five runs off the bowling of Fazalhaq Farooqi, following which Reeza Hendricks and the captain Aiden Markram steered them home to a comfortable win.
Below are the fan reactions on X after South Africa demolished Afghanistan in the T20 World Cup 2024 semifinal:
