South Africa scraped past the West Indies in a thrilling quarterfinal clash of the T20 World Cup, securing a hard-fought victory despite a nervous chase that saw them lose wickets at crucial moments. While relieved to reach the semifinals, South African captain Aiden Markram admitted that his team erred in trying to finish the chase too early, leading to an unconvincing win.
Despite restricting the two-time champions to a modest 135/8, South Africa found themselves at 15/2 in just two overs before rain interrupted play for almost an hour. The revised target of 123 after the rain break, coupled with improved batting conditions, presented an opportunity for South Africa to launch a blistering assault. However, they kept losing wickets, making the chase tense and tight.
“A lot of relief to get through to the semifinal. Not going to be brainwashed by that. We would have liked to be more convincing with bat in hand,” Markram acknowledged during the post-match presentation. “After the rain break, the wicket was playing nicely. We did not get the partnerships to then kill the game. Tried to kill it (the chase) too early, it put us in a tricky position. (The win) is massive for us and fantastic for the change room.”
Markram hopes that this nervy win will serve as a valuable learning lesson for his side. “We bowled really well, assessed conditions and kept them to a sub-par total. We could have build a partnership after the break and then take it from there, we will take that learning and hopefully not do that same mistake again.”
The South African captain also highlighted his team’s strategic bowling choices, opting to utilize the spin trio of Tabraiz Shamsi (3/27), Keshav Maharaj (1/24), and himself (1/28). This was done to exploit the spin-friendly wicket against the West Indies. “We picked Shamsi to have a mystery spinner against them and immediately saw it spinning, so we wanted to bowl as much spin as we can. If it wouldn’t spin that much, then we would have used our pacers, not a lot of times when Rabada bowls only two overs. We have been doing really well, the bowling unit is firing and as a batting unit it is about when to take the game on. We need to be smart on those situations.”
While the West Indies’ hopes of a third World Cup title were dashed, skipper Rovman Powell remained extremely proud of the progress his team has made over the past year. After missing out on qualifying for the ODI World Cup last year, West Indies cricket seemed to be at a low point. However, under Powell’s leadership, the ‘Men in Maroon’ have enjoyed a resurgence, climbing to the third spot in the ICC T20 rankings.
“When you look on a large scale, we have not won the World Cup or in the semifinal, but if you look at the cricket we have played in the last 15 months, to go from No.9 to No.3 in the rankings, it is commendable,” Powell said. “There is a lot of buzz in the Caribbean around West Indian cricket, and now is where the work starts. Continue to work together as a group and make the Caribbean people proud. When we hear the anthem, as players, we feel something and that is heading in the right direction.”
Despite setting a below-par target, the West Indies bowlers put up a commendable fight, taking the match to the last over. “Credit has to be given to the boys, they fought till the very end. As a batting group, this is a performance you’d want to forget. We did not bat well in the middle. It was not an easy wicket, especially to get started,” the skipper concluded.
