South Africa secured a place in the T20 World Cup final by beating Afghanistan after 56 runs in Trinidad on Wednesday.
This is the first time South Africa reached a world cup final ending its semi-finals curse going back to the 1992 World Cup semi-finals.
South Africa will face the winner of Thursday’s second semi-final between India and holders England for the title in Barbados on Saturday.
The perennial underachievers looked anything but as they ripped through the Afghan batting in less than 12 overs at Brian Lara Stadium to restrict their shellshocked opponents to their lowest ever score in T20 internationals.
South Africa’s batting has stuttered at times during the tournament and Fazalhaq Farooqi bowled Quinton de Kock early, but Reeza Hendricks and skipper Aiden Markram got the Proteas to their target without further losses inside nine overs.
Afghanistan, playing their first semi-final after a thrilling victory over Bangladesh in their last Super Eight match in St Vincent on Monday, won the toss and chose to bat.
Rahmanullah Gurbaz, the highest run-scorer at the tournament, and Ibrahim Zadran had been the mainstay of the Afghan batting with three century opening partnerships on their fairytale run to the last four.
Left-arm quick Marco Jansen (3-16) removed Gurbaz for a duck with just four runs on the board in the opening over, however, and returned in the third over to bowl Gulbadin Naib for nine.
There was no respite from the other end as paceman Kagiso Rabada (2-14) found a nice line and length to bowl Zadran and Mohammad Nabi for a couple of runs apiece in the fourth over.
The third quick Anrich Nortje (2-7) chipped in with a couple of wickets and left-arm wrist spinner Tabraiz Shamsi (3-6) mopped up the tail as Afghanistan became the first team to score fewer than 100 runs in a T20 World Cup semi-final.
