Colombo: India’s quest to regain the World Twenty20 title came to a heartbreaking end after they were knocked out of the tournament despite a thrilling one-run victory over South Africa in the final Super Eights contest here on Tuesday night.
Put into bat, India scored 152 for six and needed to restrict South Africa within 121 to qualify for the semifinals on net run rate but Faf Du Plessis knocked the stuffing out of the Indian bowlers with a smashing half-century that put paid to their hopes of making it to the knock-out stage.
India’s task was made all the more difficult after Pakistan comprehensively beat Australia by 32 runs in an earlier Super Eights match of the day as it strengthened their net run-rate. Australia and Pakistan qualify for the semifinals from Group II.
South Africa were all out for 151 in the penultimate ball to end their campaign after losing all three of their Super Eights matches.
Ever since winning the inaugural edition in 2007, MS Dhoni and his boys have failed to reach the semifinals of the subsequent editions.
Du Plessis hit 65 off 38 balls with the help of six boundaries and two sixes but more importantly he dashed any hope of India making it to the last four.
The defining moment came when Robin Peterson played a slow bouncer from Lakshmipathy Balaji towards short fine leg as South Africa reached 122 and it was cheered lustily by a sizeable Pakistani supporters anxiously waiting for the moment.
For India, the magic figure was 121 and the start was a right one. Zaheer Khan bowled a perfect delivery first up to dismiss Hashim Amla.
But it was Du Plessis who started taking on the Indian bowlers.
Dhoni brought Man-of-the-Match Yuvraj on at the end of the Powerplay overs and it immediately paid off as he got de Villiers to play a tentative forward defensive push which clipped the off-stump bail.
However, there was no stopping du Plessis who was in a mood to dispatch everything out of sight as he raced to his fifty in 29 balls.
At the halfway stage, South Africa were 73 for three and it was literally impossible for India to restrict the Proteas to 121.
Dhoni, however, said that he was satisfied with the overall performance of his side.
“We failed to click as a team. Our batting and bowling and also fielding were patchy, brilliant at different times. But all the three departments of the game did not click together at a particular match. But overall I’m quite happy with how the team performed,” Dhoni said after the match.
“If you take the Australia game out where the rain intervened, we performed brilliantly and can’t have control over how other teams performed and how they impacted on our team,” he said. “There were instances where we should have had 10-15 runs more on the board. We lost too many wickets early.”
Dhoni said that his top-order batsmen failed often in the tournament and that was one of the reasons why the team could not post or chase big totals.
“We are team which capitalised on good starts. Often we are two or three down in the first 10 overs in this tournament. Because of that we could not capitalise after 15 overs and we ended up 10 to 15 runs less. We have some big hitters who can score 10 to 15 runs more than other teams at the end overs. But that did not happen,” he lamented.
Yuvraj was happy with his individual performance, but disappointed at the team not progressing.
“I heard some people said what Yuvraj was doing in the playing eleven. But I am happy that I could take some wickets because I did not do much with the bat,” said Yuvraj, who took two wickets and scored 21 runs.
“Twenty20 is unpredictable and we are disappointed that we could not qualify for the semifinals,” added Yuvraj.
Asked about his fitness, the left-hander said, “I am fit enough to play for India and I will get even fitter if I play more and more Test and ODI cricket.” (PTI)