Guyana, Jun 28: India played true to their character, remained calm and composed, braved the multiple rain interruptions and beat reigning champions England in the tensed second semifinal, to storm into the final of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2024.
Rohit Sharma and Co would play South Africa in Bridgetown on Saturday. This would be India's consecutive second World Cup final in a span of seven months.
Remind you, after remaining unbeaten in 10 consecutive games in the ODI World Cup 2023, hosts India were surprised by Australia in Ahmedabad on November 19 in the Final in front of more than one lakh home fans. Heartbreaks, grief and emotional outbursts continued for months.
Prior to the ODI World Cup Final loss, a few months earlier, India were beaten by the Aussies in the World Test Championship (WTC) final in England as well. It was their second consecutive WTC Final shock after New Zealand overtook them in the title clash of the first edition of the WTC.
Playing ICC multi-nation tournament semifinals and finals have been a routine affair for India in recent years. But they have been missing the trophies narrowly.
But former England skipper Nasser Hussain reacting on India's victory against England on Thursday, stated that the better team (India) did win. Hussain stated India "had all bases covered" and were the more organised team on the day.
In his column for the Daily Mail, the former England captain wrote, "The narrative will be that everything on Thursday was geared towards India reaching the T20 World Cup final — the surface, the venue, all seemed to be in their favour. But if you look at things in greater detail, they came into this semi-final against England having just beaten 50-over world champions Australia on a bouncier, good pitch in St Lucia, and reverted to a lower, slower pitch and won comfortably."
Hussain further continued, "Fair play to them for the way they played and it feels right that India and South Africa, the two unbeaten sides in the tournament, go head to head in Barbados on Saturday."
But T20 World Cup 2024 semifinal is over and India would be keen to win the trophy this time after faltering at the final hurdle against Australia in the ODI World Cup 2023.
Can they do it?
Well, considering Nasser Hussain's remarks about Team India, it appears so. But Rohit and his men would be very much aware that they are up against a different South Africa this time. Aiden Markram led Proteas, have been ruthless, fearless and clinical in the tournament so far.
