Image Credit- ICC
The final should have been decided by the over. Heinrich Klaasen took his opportunity to knock the 15th over of South Africa’s chase for 24 runs, mercilessly going after Axar Patel. It was clinical, destructive, and contemptuous. In any setting, much less the biggest T20 cricket arena, it was absolutely devastating hitting.
With six wickets remaining, South Africa needed to score 30 runs off the next 30 balls. At first look, it seemed like an unwinnable match: with Klaasen or David Miller at the wicket, they could still be the favourites even if they chose to stop Jasprit Bumrah’s final two overs.
You’re probably aware of what happened next. After 45 minutes, the players from South Africa sat dejectedly on the outfield of Kensington Oval, anticipating their runners-up medals. They didn’t say much. With Kagiso Rabada’s outside edge, the last 30 balls yielded just 22 runs, four wickets, and a single boundary. The weight of history is the greatest weight there is.
It is never quite as easy as a choke: just because one team is on the verge of winning, it does not mean that the other team loses all agency. However, a comprehension of the final five overs of this match would be impossible without recognising the legacy of South Africa. They had never advanced this far in a men’s World Cup in either format before, which was partly due to their consistent inability to win tight elimination matches, which saw them eliminated seven times at the semi-final stage. How could their players have avoided thinking about it?
South Africa needed 26 off the final four when Klaasen and Miller finished the 16th over, Bumrah’s third. The odds were stacked in their favour. India understood they had to find a way to take it back because the T20 finals go by rapidly. Rishabh Pant, the mischievous one, figured out how to achieve this by going down and getting help from India’s physiotherapist.
There was a brief three-minute interval between the end of the sixteenth over and the beginning of the seventeenth. The game’s momentum did, however, abruptly shift when Hardik smacked the opening ball of his over full and well outside off; Klaasen was unable to fully reach it and managed to edge a catch through to Pant.
At that point, the game took a permanent turn, with Marco Jansen entering at No. 7. Jansen has been batting one slot too high, but he is not an overpromoted tailender. Everything was on Miller all of a sudden; following four single exchanges between him and Jansen off of Hardik’s over, the equation was 22 off 18. He appeared to be undecided whether to go down the other end or assume responsibility for seeing Bumrah off.
With two dots, a single that exposed Jansen, an unplayable ball that crept in late to hit leg stump, a solid block by Keshav Maharaj, and then another single that put Miller off strike for the start of the 19th, the outcome was the worst of both worlds.
By the time Miller returned to form at the beginning of the 19th over, India was favourites with 19 off nine balls after Maharaj had blocked, missed, and eventually connected.
It was a straightforward plan: swing, and swing hard, with 16 needed off of 6. Miller finally caught the ball he was chasing when Hardik threw a wide full toss that he whacked down the pitch. As Suryakumar Yadav rushed after it, it hung in the air, spinning towards the press box in the cross-breeze. As he ran over the boundary, he caught it, flicked it back up to himself, and grabbed it again. Rabada edged his first ball for four but the game was up: South Africa only managed one more run off the bat, falling seven short of India’s total.
Some felt that this was their last chance to add a fresh chapter to the history of South African cricket in the World Cup; Quinton de Kock appeared to be saying as much when he was dismissed. In two years, others will be sporting the same scars in the hopes that the conclusion will eventually differ from this one.