T20
T20 World Cup semi-finals preview
After three weeks of enticing action the 2024 T20 World Cup has been whittled down to just four teams.
Below we will take you through how South Africa, Afghanistan, India and England came to be the final four teams remaining in the competition and preview the two semi-finals.
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What has happened so far?
The group stage saw a number of shock results as the poor quality of the pitches led to low scoring which brought about a fair few upsets. The hosts, USA, defeating Pakistan in a Super Over was probably the biggest upset of all, whilst Nepal losing by merely one run to South Africa nearly made for the biggest shock in T20 World Cup history.
After the group stage came the Super 8s which saw the remaining teams split into two groups. Group 1 consisted of India, Afghanistan, Australia and Bangladesh. Group 2 was made up of South Africa, England, West Indies and USA.
In slightly controversial fashion, Australia surprisingly missed out and it was India and Afghanistan who progressed from Group 1. Despite having only qualified on net run rate, England squeezed through from Group 2 in second, whilst South Africa won all of their games to top the group.
This leaves us with South Africa facing off against Afghanistan in the first semi-final in the early hours of Thursday morning, whilst India will take on England in the afternoon. We take a closer look at both matches below.
South Africa vs Afghanistan, Thursday 01:30 (GMT)
Set your alarm clocks early if you want to catch the first semi-final between South Africa and Afghanistan, which will be played at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy in Trinidad and Tobago.
Unsurprisingly, it is South Africa who head into the game as heavy odds-on favourites, with their 4/11 status suggesting that they may already feel they have one foot in the final. However, many have underestimated Afghanistan before (just ask Australia), and they will be sure to put up a good fight in attempting to overcome their underdog status at 21/10 to reach the final.
Afghanistan do have the tournament’s two outstanding players in Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Fazalhaq Farooqi, who are the top run scorer and wicket taker respectively. If they are to win then these two will likely be at the centre of the action. Both could be nicely priced to lead their respective roles, with Gurbaz 9/4 to be his side’s top run scorer and Farooqi 16/5 to take the most wickets. The South African angle looks to be Quinton de Kock to hit over 1 six at 15/8.
India vs England, Thursday 15:30 (GMT)
England have hardly been at their barnstorming best throughout this tournament, only managing to scrape through the group stage ahead of Scotland on net run rate. Nonetheless they got through the Super 8s convincingly enough, but in India they face their sternest challenge yet.
They head into the game as 6/5 underdogs with all eyes on captain and top run scorer Jos Buttler to lead the charge. He has 191 runs to his name so far and is a 19/10 chance to add to that by being his side’s top scorer in this semi-final.
India have been by far the best team in the tournament, which is hardly surprising given they are the number one ranked T20 team in the world. As such they are the 4/6 favourites for their semi-final against England and they’ll be oozing confidence after their 24-run victory over Australia.
Rohit Sharma smashed 92 runs from just 41 deliveries in that game and with another big performance needed here, he could be a great price at 9/4 to hit over 2 sixes.
