New Delhi: India has won the T20 world cup for the second time, years after the inaugural tournament win in 2007. India is the first team in men’s T20 World Cup history to win the tournament without losing a single match.
South Africa fell just a few runs short of India’s total of 176-7, scoring only 169-8 in a nailbiting finale to cricket’s T20 World Cup in Bridgetown in Barbados.
India won the toss and elected to bat first. Virat Kohli won the player-of-the match award, scoring a crucial 76 in the final after a difficult tournament.
Kohli had only tallied 75 runs in the previous seven games, well below expectations for India’s most dangerous batsman, but more than doubled his tournament tally on Saturday with 76 off just 59 deliveries.
Kohli hit six fours and a pair of sixes, and also notched a handy partnership of 74 runs with Axar Patel that laid the foundations for an Indian total that was just too high for the South Africans to match.
Here is one of the best defensive plays ever and it may have single-handedly won the T20 World Cup Final for India.
Pay attention to where Suryakumar Yadav’s feet are the whole time – if the ball, and the player with the ball in his hand cross the boundary that you can see here… pic.twitter.com/K84AfOOEKd
— Daman Rangoola (@damanr) June 29, 2024
He also announced his retirement from T20 cricket immediately after the win.
“This was my last T20 game playing for India,” 35-year-old said. “Time for the next generation to take the T20 game forward.”
Indian captain Rohit Sharma also announced his retirement.
“This is my last game as well, no better time to say goodbye to this format. I’ve loved every moment of this. I started my career for India playing this format and this is what I wanted, I wanted to win the World Cup,” Sharma said, according to Indian Express.
South Africa’s chase almost looked doomed from the outset, as India quickly took the wickets of Reeza Hendricks and Aiden Markram in the time it took South Africa to notch 12 runs.
But Quinton de Kock and Tristan Stubbs steadied the ship for South Africa with a partnership of 58, and Heinrich Klaasen came in behind them to score an extremely rapid 52 off 27 balls. Briefly, the chase appeared to be back on, South Africa were arguably even edging into pole position.
Yet near the end of the game, South Africa was still in need of a run every ball and could not keep up the scoring rate as India took several more wickets, bringing South Africa’s weaker lower-order batsman onto the pitch for the decisive phase of play.
With inputs from DW.
