India end South Africa's Twenty20 dream
Posted on Sep 21, 2007 at 11:20 | Updated Sep 21, 2007 at 13:36
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Tags: cricket, Twenty20 world championship, india
Durban: India beat South Africa by 37 runs at the Kingsmead in Durban on Thursday to storm into the semi-finals of the Twenty20 World Championship.
The loss meant that the hosts have been knocked out of the tournament as they finished third on Net Run Rate in Group E behind India and New Zealand.
India now play Australia in the second semi-final on Saturday at the same ground.
But the job was not as easy as it looked with the star of their demolition job against England, Yuvraj Singh, forced on the bench because of an elbow injury.
It was a big jolt to India but Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag were in no mood to back off.
India's start was good but did not last long and once Shaun Pollock sent Gambhir back, a mini collapse followed.
Sehwag and Dinesh Karthik were sent back into the pavilion for the addition of just one run to leave India reeling at 33/3.
With Robin Uthappa's fall, India were reduced to 61/4 but in Rohit Sharma they discovered a new hero. With just a couple of One-Dayers to call on for experience, the 20-year-old batted calmly in the company of his skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni to lead the recovery.
Dhoni played a restrained cameo of 45 runs off 33 balls to propel the total beyond the 150-run mark.
India needed to breakthrough the strong South African top order early and Rudra Pratap Singh did just that. Herschelle Gibbs and Graeme Smith fell to the left-arm pacer with Karthik taking a stunning catch to send the South African skipper back.
After that the South African top order offered little resistance and a spectacular throw by Sharma caught the dangerous Justin Kemp out of his ground.
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