Pakistan stunned the South Africans in the first semi-finals of the ICC World T20 at Trent Bridge to enter the finals of the tournament for the second successive time, leaving the Proteas to lick their wounds and reigniting talks of them being chokers.
Pakistan won the toss and elected to bat first on a Trent Bridge wicket which had only recently seen an adjoining track host India and South Africa few days back and 130 not being chased. Kamran Akmal began for the Pakistanis with a couple of fours in the very first over, and despite Shahzaib Hasan’s early loss – for a duck – he continued in the same vein and even smashed Dale Steyn for a six over the bowler’s head. He did perish off the very next ball – 28/2 in the third over – but that brought Shoaib Malik and Shahid Afridi together and they had a good, match-winning partnership going for them.
The duo added 67 runs in less than eight overs, with Afridi playing one of the rare knocks which did not have too many cross-batted shots and got to 51 in 34 balls. His dismissal to a master-stroke by Graeme Smith of getting in J.P.Duminy tilted the things back into South Africa’s favour, as Pakistan could add only 54 runs in the last eight overs. Yet, the wicket looked like it would spin a lot more as the game progressed, and a target of 150 would be a stiff one to achieve.
Jacques Kallis completed his half century, but the acceleration that was needed by the Proteas to inch up to the target, never came and then Umar Gil bowled a fabulous three overs for only 19, including the penultimate one for six runs to turn the game in the favour of Pakistan. An ask of 23 runs in the last over was never going to be easy and the Proteas fell seven runs short.
