As Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc hugged each other in relief, the pair’s tail-end nous having booked a showdown with India in Sunday’s World Cup final, it was hard not to feel for the latest set of South Africans to fall at the penultimate hurdle.
This three-wicket victory for Australia was deserving of the chance to take on the undefeated hosts at Ahmedabad’s Modi mega-bowl. Over the course of two innings on a capricious, used pitch, Cummins and his men made the bulk of the running, rolling their opponents for 212 with the ball and reeling in the target with 16 balls to spare.
But as the final scoreline suggests, there were stumbles along the way in this soupy, cyclonic day-nighter. A crowd of 48,000 locals – plus a sprinkling of travelling fans – witnessed a gripping knockout contest; the kind that will live long in the memory, even if Temba Bavuma and his heartbroken players may wish to banish it from theirs.
