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, Aidan Markram, was hugely disappointed, and this is what he had to say.
They bowled really well up front. The ball didn’t quite feel like it was coming on – some balls stopped, some kept low – and that made scoring really tough. Pressure builds and you lose wickets unfortunately. And then when someone plays an innings like that against you, you won’t come out on the right side of the result too often.
To get to 170 was a great effort and we felt like we had a sniff. But they got off to a flyer and from there it was really hard to pull it back. We must give credit to Finn Allen and Tim Seifert for killing the game as early as they did.
We’ll let the emotions settle and then have a discussion as a group. We expected the wicket to play really well and maybe we didn’t adapt quickly enough with the bat. We’re disappointed with the result but I’m really proud of this group of guys; they’ve played some great cricket during the tournament.
Mitchell Santner was very much pleased with his team's performance especially the opening partnership and this is what he had to say.
Yeah, it was nice. We know how good South Africa are so to put on a performance like that in a crunch game is pretty pleasing.
We tried to keep them under pressure for a long time and we used more spin early on [than in the group game against South Africa]. If you can take wickets throughout it’s a challenge to keep going with the bat.
[On the opening partnership] It was nice to watch, I’m not gonna lie. We were very happy chasing 170 but you never know. They took it on, which was cool to see. If you get through a Powerplay none down, it puts you in a pretty position. And then Finny just carried on. I mean, 33 balls for a hundred’s not bad.
Allen hammered 100 not out from 33 balls, including 10 fours and eight sixes, as New Zealand easily won with 43 balls remaining, chasing 170 after Marco Jansen's 27-ball half-century had saved South Africa from 77-5.
Before Allen went into overdrive, New Zealand's openers amassed 117 runs (55 balls) for the first wicket thanks to a quick half-century from Tim Seifert (58 off 33).
He dominated his 56-run partnership with Rachin Ravindra by smashing 42 runs off just 11 deliveries, including hitting Jansen for five straight boundaries.
Prior to losing the toss, South Africa was undefeated in this competition, including a seven-wicket triumph over the Black Caps in the first group round. However, they struggled with the bat.
They fell to 12-2 after losing Quinton de Kock (10) and Ryan Rickelton (0) to consecutive deliveries in the second over, while David Miller (6) and Aiden Markram (18 off 20) also failed to take advantage of being dropped on three.
South Africa thought the game was over when Dewald Brevis (34 off 27) chipped a simple catch to Mitchell Santner in the covers in the eleventh over. However, Jansen found a reliable partner in Tristan Stubbs (29 off 24) before exploding in the last five overs to take the Proteas from 108-5 to 169-8.
Jansen scored five sixes in his undefeated 55 off 30 balls and amassed 73 runs (48 balls) for the sixth wicket with Stubbs.
But it soon proved to be insufficient, and New Zealand never looked back after their devastating openers scored 84 runs in the first six overs.
