T20 World Cup: India to Meet England and Pakistan against New Zealand in Semi-Final
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Nov 6: India and Pakistan progressed to semi-finals of the T20 Cricket world cup from Group 2 after South Africa’s shock exit from the tournament in the league stage following their defeat in the hands of minnows Netherlands by 13 runs on Sunday.
India will now meet England at Adelaide on Thursday while Pakistan will play against New Zealand at Sydney in the first semi-final on Wednesday. New Zealand and England have qualified for the semi-finals from Group 1 on Saturday.
Pakistan and Bangladesh match became a virtual knock-out after South Africa in the first of the three matches scheduled for the day suffered a shock defeat from the Netherlands and crashed out of the World Cup. The two teams fought a close battle as the winner was all set to reach the semi-final but ultimately Pakistan got the better of it defeating Bangladesh by four wickets with nine balls left.
Even as India was assured of a berth in the semi-final even before their match against Zimbabwe after South Africa’s defeat, the team took the field with all guns blazing to keep the momentum in its favour going. After winning the toss and opting to bat, India scored 186 runs losing only five wickets with Suryakumar Yadav playing yet another spectacular knock scoring 61 runs of just 25 balls. India scored as many as 79 runs in the last five overs with lion’s share in the partnership going to Suryakumar.
In reply, Zimbabwe was bowled out for only 115 runs in 17.2 overs handing down India an impressive win by 71 runs taking the team top of Group 2 with eight points. India also secured a better run rate than all other teams in the group. The net run-rate had become the deciding factor to choose the winning teams in the other group throwing the host Australia which though had seven points with two other teams, finished third in the ranking because of its poor run rate and was thrown out of the tournament.
