New Zealand thumped South Africa by nine wickets in the T20 Cricket World Cup semi-final at Eden Gardens in Kolkata to reach the final.
Finn Allen was the star of the match, hitting the quickest century in T20 Cricket. Allen made cricket history, achieving 100 off just 33 balls and blasting fours and sixes.
“Obviously, we wanted to start looking straight and obviously try and put them on the back foot early,” said Allen.
Teammate Tim Seifert also played well, striking 58 in a 117 opening stand and smashing two sixes and seven fours to help his side defeat the South Africans.
Seifert’s performance impressed Allen, who mentioned it made things easier.
“I think it’s easy for me when Timmy’s (Seifert) going like that, I can kind of just watch and then hit it when it’s in my area and just try and give him the strike.”
The 2024 runners-up, South Africa showed the cricket world once again that they can’t handle pressure and tend to choke in semi-finals and finals. They only managed to score 169/8 while New Zealand scored 173/1.
“I don’t know if tonight was a choke, I thought it was a bloody walloping,” South Africa team coach Shukri Conrad told reporters.
“If you want to be choked, you might as well have had a snook in the game. Tonight we got a proper snotklap, a South African word meaning a real hiding.”
Conrad also mentioned how he is proud of the team despite people thinking they would reach this far into the tournament.
However, it was all smiles for New Zealand captain Mitchell Santner post-match.
“We knew obviously how good South Africa are, and they’ve shown that throughout the tournament,” he emphasised.
“So, to put on a performance like that in a crunch game is obviously pretty pleasing.”
The second semifinal will be England vs India, with New Zealand to play the winner of that game in the decider.
The final will be on Monday, March 9 12.30 AM AET at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, India, with anticipation building for the final.
Featured Photo: T20 Men’s Cricket World Cup Logo. Image by International Cricket Council/ Google.com/CC/ WikimediaCommons. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
