India cruise into T20 World Cup final thanks to spinners show on friendly pitch

The pitch at Guyana played a key role as India spinners tightened the noose around England batsmen to lead their team to a comprehensive 68-run win in the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup. India will now face South Africa in the final on June 29 at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados.

India were put into bat and scored 171/7 in the allotted 20 overs as England pacers struggled to get a hang of the slow pitch where the ball did not even bounce waist high. Only spinners Adil Rashid and Liam Livingstone could succeed on the surface.

Rohit Sharma scored 57 off 39, his second successive half-century and the third in this tournament, while Suryakumar Yadav chipped in with 47 off 36 balls. Hardik Pandya and Ravindra Jadeja scored 23 off 13 and 17 off nine balls.

In response, England began well, moving to 26 in three overs before losing Jos Buttler’s wicket. They reached 33/1 after four overs but then their struggles began. From 34/1, they were reduced to 49/5. Harry Brook and Liam Livingstone were the only hopes but when Brook was bowled trying to go for the reverse sweep for 25 off 19, England were reduced to 68/6 and the writing was on the wall.

They folded for 103, courtesy some lusty blows from Jofra Archer. Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel picked three wickets each.

Earlier, India had made 46/2 in the first six overs.

England skipper Jos Buttler acknowledged that the pitch this time was far different from the one in 2022 in Australia when they had slammed India by 10 wickets.

“India certainly outplayed us. We let them get 20-25 runs too many. It was a challenging surface,” he said while adding, “[These were] very different conditions [than those in 2022 T20 World Cup semi-final]”

Both India and South Africa are the only unbeaten teams in the tournament.

India cricket team, England cricket team, T20 World Cup