South Africa’s pace battery bowled out Afghanistan for just 56 runs in just 11.5 overs. This was Afghanistan’s lowest total in the T20I format. A telling statistic of the match was that the highest scorer for Afghanistan were extras — 13 runs — while Azmatullah Omarzai (10 runs) was the only batter to reach double figures on the night.

Marco Jansen (3-16), Kagiso Rabada (2-14) and Anrich Nortje (2-7) shared seven wickets between them. Meanwhile, Tabraiz Shamsi also picked up three lower-order wickets.

Coming into chase, South Africa lost the wicket of Quinton de Kock in the second over for five runs but that mattered little in the larger scheme of things as Aiden Markram (23 not out) and Reeza Hendricks (29 not out) took control to take the Proteas home.

Afghanistan captain Rashid Khan admitted that Afghanistan could have done better.

“I think it was a tough night for us as a team and we could’ve done better than us. But conditions didn’t let us do that but you should be mentally ready for any situation. I thought we didn’t bat well. We were struggling when Mujeeb got injured, but Nabi, Fazal…that made our job as a spinning unit easier. The consistency in bowling was something pleasing for me. We came here before the tournament and if you told us we would be playing the semi-final against South Africa, we would accept that.

“Winning big games in this competition…and yes we are capable of beating any side. Next time when we participate in a tournament like this, we will have the belief. It’s about how you manage yourself in those pressure situations against tough teams. There is a lot of hard work to be done, especially in the middle order. We need to be aggressive and have someone to take the innings deep. We have achieved some good results but when we come back in the tournament, we need to do better, especially in the batting department.”