KOLKATA, India (AP) — New Zealand opener Finn Allen smashed the fastest-ever century in a T20 World Cup game to help the Kiwis defeat favorite South Africa by nine wickets in the first semifinal on Wednesday.
Allen’s blistering unbeaten 100 off 33 balls featured 10 fours and eight sixes and propelled New Zealand to 173-1 in only 12.5 overs to end South Africa’s hopes of reaching its second successive final.
Allen’s ruthless power-hitting saw the right-hander smash Marco Jansen for 4-4-6-6-4 to reach one of the most memorable hundreds in the tournament’s history and lift New Zealand to only its second final.
West Indies great Chris Gayle had the previous record with his 47-ball hundred against England in the 2016 tournament.
South Africa, which came into the playoffs on the back of seven straight wins in the tournament that included seven-wicket win over the Kiwis in the group stage, had used Jansen’s unbeaten 55 off 30 balls to score 169-8 after Mitchell Santner won the toss and elected to chase at Eden Gardens.
“Just tried to get in good positions and perform for the team,” Allen said. “We wanted to start well and put them on the back foot early. Easy for me when Timmy is going like that … training is really important to get a feel of the wicket. We knew it would be black soil, we had that intel.”
And the chase was all over inside the first six overs when Allen and Tim Seifert (58) raced New Zealand to 84-0. Both batters smashed Jansen for two sixes and three boundaries in left-armer’s first two overs and then Allen rounded off the power play by smashing Corbin Bosch for 22 runs in the sixth over.
The return of Kagiso Rabada and leftarm spinner Keshav Maharaj also couldn’t stem the flow of runs as the pair swelled the opening stand to 117 in only nine overs. Rabada got the consolation wicket of Seifert when he knocked the top of leg stump, but Allen kept coming hard on the bowlers with his amazing power-hitting.
Jansen was punished by Allen and Seifert as the left-armer conceded 53 runs off his 2.5 overs. Bosch gave away 35 of his two overs while Maharaj (0-33) and Lungi Ngidi (0-22) were smashed for 55 runs off their five overs.
“Massive credit to Finn Allen’s knock and Seifert’s knock to kill the game off as early as they did,” South Africa captain Aiden Markram said. “We expected the wicket to play really well, looked really good to the eye. Maybe we had to try and scrape our way to 190 and we’d be in the game.”
Jansen leads South Africa recovery
Left-handed Jansen led the recovery in the second half of the innings after the top-order had slipped to 77-5 in the 11th over against off-spin of Cole McConchie (2-9) and the leftarm spin of Rachin Ravindra (2-29).
Santner was quick to gauge the matchup and his ploy to give McConchie the new ball brought New Zealand two wickets in two balls when Quinton de Kock (10) was caught at mid-on and Ryan Rickelton sliced a catch to point off the first ball he faced from the offspinner.
Markram (18) and David Miller (6) couldn’t capitalize on dropped catch and fell to Ravindra with Daryl Mitchell holding onto the catches of both batters in the outfield.
Jansen and Tristan Stubbs (29) revived the innings with a 73-run stand as Jansen raised his half century with back-to-back sixes against Lockie Ferguson and South Africa accelerated well in the death overs by scoring 68 runs of the last six overs.
“When you see how good South Africa are, to put on a performance like that in a crunch game is pretty pleasing,” Santner said. “I guess today was just about trying to keep pressure on throughout, and when you take wickets consistently it’s a challenge to keep going with the bat.”
New Zealand will take on the winner of Thursday’s semifinal between co-host India and England.
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