India and South Africa are all geared up for the ultimate clash, or, you could say, the last hurdle. After convincingly beating England. India is onto the finals, on the other hand, South Africa decimated Afghanistan in their semifinal game and is now ready to face off against India at the Kensington Oval in Barbados.
Both teams have not had the best records in knockout matches in recent years, but surely one team is going to break their jinx. But who will it be? Before we draw any conclusions, let’s first see what happened the last time both teams met in the T20 World Cup knockout game.
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India vs South Africa T20 World Cup 2014 Semi-Final
It was a decade ago when India faced South Africa in the T20 World Cup 2014 knockout. It was a semifinal game at Mirpur, Bangladesh. Virat Kohli, who is going through a lean patch in this T20 World Cup 2024, He was roaring back then with the bat in that edition. When he touched the Mirpur ground, he roared back once again. Looking at the game, South Africa captain Faf du Plessis won the toss and decided to send MS Dhoni’s company to bowl.
Captain Faf du Plessis, with 58, and JP Duminy, with 45, pulled South Africa to a score of 172 runs, which was still an impressive target at that time. Bowlers like Dale Steyn, Imran Tahir, and Wayne Parnell were all in peak form, which made this target a little difficult.
Although the Indian team countered with an opening partnership of 39 runs in just 23 balls between Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane, establishing a strong foundation, it was King Kohli who took over and made 72 runs off 44 balls with a strike rate of 163. He took the Proteas’ bowlers to task and snatched the game from the South African camp, eventually securing a spot in the finals.
Interesting moments from that Match
We also witnessed an interesting moment in that game when the scores were level. It was seen that Kohli went to MS Dhoni and said, ‘You can finish the game.’ However, Captain MS Dhoni, who received an easy delivery from left-arm bowler Beuran Hendricks, just defended and sent it down slowly. Kohli then smashed the first ball of the final over from fast bowler Dale Steyn for four to seal the game for India.
Once, Kohli himself revealed about that incident
‘Yes, he gave me a chance to finish the game off. I had told him, ‘Aap khatam kardo (you do it)’, but he told me, ‘Tune acchi batting kari hain, to ye mera gift hain tere liye (you have batted well, take this gift from me)’.
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