South Africa Limp into Semis

It wasn’t the most convincing of wins and they had a nervy wait with the Australia v India match deciding their fate, but South Africa have made the semi finals in the 2026 T20 World Cup.

The equation was pretty simple for South Africa: they needed to win this match, and then wait. Their fate out of their hands as they awaited the result of the Australia v India match that followed.

It must be mentioned that Bangladesh were still a mathematical chance for if they had won this match and India lost to Australia there would have been a three way tie for second spot. The difficulty with that however was that the Tigresses’ NRR was so far behind India and South Africa that even a thumping win would not have been enough.

It was a hot day at Lord’s and there was already s solid crowd coming through the gates but their eyes were here for the game that followed.

Nigar Sultana won the toss for Bangladesh and chose to bat. It was a slow crawl, the entire innings not even managing 6 runs per over. Sobhana Mostary (42) and Nigar Sultana (32) were the best performers, but a total of 117/5 was never going to trouble South Africa.

Given the flood of runs on this track in the match that followed, only managing 117 with 5 wickets in hand shows just how Bangladesh failed to make the best use of the conditions. That said, Marufa Akter delivered a stunning ball to dismiss Laura Wolvaardt from the first ball of the chase, so perhaps the bowling group would succeed where the batters were more timid.

Annerie Dercksen (45) and Tazmin Brits (20) had other ideas and their 52 run stand laid the platform for the Proteas. They probably lost more wickets than desired and they did take until the 20th over to overhaul the total, but in the end, how they did it is irrelevant. South Africa won by 4 wickets and kept their finals hopes alive. And in the later game, the Aussies did what South Africa needed and thus the Proteas finished the group stage in second place, landing them a spot in the finals.

Marizanne Kapp was named Player of the Match, her second award of the tournament.

Scores

Bangladesh 117/5 (Sobhana Mostary 42, Nigar Sultana 32, Nonkululeko Mlaba 2-22, Marizanne Kapp 1-9) lost to
South Africa 118/6 (Annerie Dercksen 45, Tazmin Brits 20, Marizanne Kapp 16, Nahida Akter 2-24) by 4 wickets

POTM: Marizanne Kapp