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, 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.”
Mitchell Santner's verdict
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.
