Dale Steyn must have felt very proud on his birthday eve. Sitting in the Trinidad commentary box, he watched from up close as South Africa's pace battery shredded the Afghanistan lineup to bits. On X, Steyn marvelled at South Africa's "destructive poetry in motion". No one understands the phrase better than he does.

Just so you know, for reals, Nortjie is bowling absolute rockets!

— Dale Steyn (@DaleSteyn62) June 27, 2024

According to the broadcasters, Thursday’s average seam movement was measured at 1.2 degrees, much higher than all previous T20 World Cup matches in Guyana this year. In the break, Kagiso Rabada admitted the ball was “moving around quite a bit”. 

It was a spicy pitch, no doubt. But not just for Afghanistan. Second ball of the chase, batting way out of his crease, Quinton de Kock was struck on the rib cage. The padded up Aiden Markram nodded slowly, acknowledging what was in store.

An hour before that, Afghanistan’s batters were crumbling. Here’s how the mayhem unfolded.

Marco Jansen’s early blows

It wasn’t just lateral movement. The surface had extra lift as well, and the biggest beneficiary was Marco Jansen, already standing at over two-metres tall. The opening salvo wasn’t through bounce though.

Jansen first cramped Rahmanullah Gurbaz for room, before making him fish outside off. Gurbaz reached out for the full-length bait and perished. 

Markram pushed in Keshav Maharaj from the other end, but realised soon this was a deck readymade for his explosive trio of quicks. Jansen bowled uninterrupted in the powerplay as he figured out the right lines. With the extra bounce evident, he pulled his length back in the second over, pushing Gulbadin Naib on the backfoot and slipping one through. 

Three balls later, he had Azmatullah Omarzai jumping and fending at a snorter, the edge nearly carrying to leg-slip. There was variable bounce alright.

Rabada’s double-wicket maiden

Markram did not delay in putting Rabada into operation. And the results were instant.

Rabada is known for his back-of-length brilliance, getting deliveries to come close to the off-stump and lift up. In the fifteen minutes Ibrahim Zadran had spent, he’d seen the ball nip in, move out and rise. Rabada’s first offering cut back sharply in, giving him no time to deploy countermeasures.

Three balls later, Rabada bettered it with another nip-backer, cutting into Mohammad Nabi and taking out his off-stump. He finished with a double-wicket maiden.

In their last two games, Afghanistan hadn’t lost a single wicket in the powerplay. On Thursday, they lost five. The over-reliance on Ibrahim and Gurbaz was finally showing.

As soon as the powerplay got over, Markram brought on Anrich Nortje, not letting the storm pass.

Operation polish-off

With the top half back, South Africa’s second set – Nortje and Tabraiz Shamsi – proceeded to wrap up the lower half. Nortje craftily mixed short balls with fuller ones: one of his deliveries leapt so high that it flew over de Kock for four byes. The one that eventually got Rashid Khan probably stayed a little lower than expected and cannoned into his off-stump.

At the other end, Shamsi came in to target the stumps, skidding deliveries from over the wicket, giving left-handers no room. Karim Janat tried to push forward but couldn’t read the turn. Noor Ahmad and Naveen-ul-Haq, in true tailenders style, rocked back to be easy, and identical, lbw victims. 

The split-up was as follows:

Overs 1 to 6: 28-5

Overs 7 to 10: 22-3

Over 11 to 11.5: 6-2

Their final score of 56 was the lowest-ever in a T20 World Cup knockout match.

Also watch: Highlights – South Africa beat Afghanistan for maiden final berth

The toss question

The pitch probably wasn’t what Afghanistan would have prepared for. It was a fresh surface with balanced boundaries, some cracks and grass combined. Having failed while chasing and succeeded while batting first, Afghanistan backed their bowlers to defend, especially with South Africa’s batting having not quite clicked like they would have liked. 

When asked about the pitch after the game, Afghan coach Jonathan Trott pinned the blame on a misfiring middle-order: “South Africa bowled pretty well and they knew how to be bowling the conditions once they saw how the pitch was behaving and I just think it's bad as we haven't fired really, the middle order hasn't fired enough this World Cup.”

As it turned out, Afghanistan gave teams ranked higher than them tough competition, but couldn’t put in a defining performance at the knockout stage. Still, an era-defining campaign.

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