World T20 Champs Super 8s & KOs, Feb 21-March 8

[meninblue]

Wicket for Shivam India needed one and gets it.

Dewald out for 45.

[meninblue]

50 for David. Well played

The experienced pro playing a significant knock when his team needed him most, yet again.

[meninblue]

Varun strikes. SA 152/5 in 15.4 overs.

David out for 63. Could have wrecked havoc in the end overs. Key wicket.

[Arthur Crabtree]

India should recall Axar. If only because he's in my FL.

[andy]

India in trouble at 23-2 but Abshiek still in!!

[mikesiva]

South Africa won by 76 runs!

Jansen 4-22
Maharaj 3-24

[meninblue]

What a day in the knockouts. Both home teams lost the matches.

India had won last 11 or 12 succesive matches in T20 cup? India did had a good powerplay picking top order wickets of SA. Credit to the 97 runs partnership between Dewald Brevis and David Miller which helped SA post 187. India were still in the game because by no means 187 is an ungettable target. But India lost top order wicket quickly and unlike SA could not get together a fightback partnership and win by a massive difference of 76 runs. SA throuoghly deserves this win to beat a team which has won 11 odd matches successively.

This was the rare bad day for Team India which is strongest in T20 format than the ODI and Test team. Cannot win every match. India play Zimbabwe next at Chennai.

[Durhamfootman]

India should recall Axar. If only because he's in my FL.

The only reason I can think of to explain his absence is that he's not fully fit

Washington Sundar has been playing, but I think Axar is just better at everything than him plus he's VC. Must be injured, surely?

[Durhamfootman]

of course, today's victory over SL and yesterday's wash out means that if England beat either of NZ or Pakistan then they will go through to the semi's

not a foregone conclusion though, by any means, because England have been nowhere near their best in this comp

[bigfluffylemon]

With all the rain around, there could easily be more washouts. It is still possible for England to qualify with a washout and a loss. It probably comes down to NRR.

[bigfluffylemon]

Forecast is fair for tomorrow though.

[alfie]

Somewhat ironic that after several quite closely contested matches between seeded teams and "minnows" in the initial group stages , the first two clashes of supposed "big" teams in the super 8s have produced what turned out to be walkovers...

OK , both games were thought to be anything but at the halfway stages ; but the final margins are what counts . And in t20 terms those margins are immense. If the losing teams had been , say , Scotland and Oman , the games would doubtless have been derided as total mis-matches !

Which doesn't really mean anything going forward because as we have seen earlier on , any of these teams is capable of putting in a total shocker in this format , and equally can turn it around next time up. What we can probably say is that a lot of the strongly stated opinions of respected commentators (and of those of us on here also , including holding my own hand up !) are worth very little. Game is played on (very variable) pitches , not paper and we should be prepared for more surprises as the WC continues. Which is surely a good thing as unpredictability makes for more entertainment , no ?

[andy]

Would love to see Zimbabwe pull off a win today and they are in decent form but I think windies will probably have enough at the end of the day....they could easily have double headers at this stage no need to long it out with one match a day

[Arthur Crabtree]

Surely the condensed format leads to an increase in exaggerated results.

[Arthur Crabtree]

WI losing a couple of wickets but Hetmyer moving the score on quickly. Looks an interesting contest.