<\/p>\n
Defending champions India thrashed Zimbabwe by 72 runs in their Super Eights T20 World Cup match on Thursday, a result that guaranteed South Africa a place in the semi-finals.<\/p>\n
India posted a mammoth 256-4 and then restricted Zimbabwe to 184-6 in Chennai to make their clash with the West Indies in Kolkata on Sunday a winner-takes-all decider for the final semi-final berth.<\/p>\n
South Africa defeated the West Indies by nine wickets earlier in Ahmedabad.<\/p>\n
At Chennai’s MA Chidambaram Stadium, opener Abhishek Sharma scored 55 and Hardik Pandya an unbeaten 50 as India racked up the second-highest total in the tournament’s history after being invited to bat first.<\/p>\n
"I think we wanted to put everything behind us. We didn’t think too much about what we did in the league stage or the last match in Ahmedabad,” India captain Suryakumar Yadav said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith contributions from first place to seventh, I think our performance lacked almost nothing.<\/p>\n
He said they had not thought about what is now a knockout match against the West Indies on Sunday.<\/p>\n
"Once we reach Kolkata, we will sit down and plan that match properly,” Suryakumar said.<\/p>\n
"For now, it’s about taking a day off, traveling and relaxing.”<\/p>\n
Zimbabwe, who surprised Australia and Sri Lanka by reaching the Super Eight, were never in contention despite a good start as the asking price continued to rise.<\/p>\n
Opener Brian Bennett was unbeaten at 97, the highest individual score by a Zimbabwean in T20 World Cup history, as his team exited the semi-final with one match still to play.<\/p>\n
India’s left-arm fast Arshdeep Singh took 3-24 from his four overs.<\/p>\n
"We are also a work in progress,” said Zimbabwe captain Sikandar Raza.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a lot of youngsters, most of them are playing their first World Cup, the first time for us in India.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot that I want to use that as an excuse, but I certainly think the lessons from the last game, from a batting point of view, we took very well.<\/p>\n
"And you can see how quickly these guys are willing to get better and showed up today.”<\/p>\n
Zimbabwe bowlers conceded 510 runs in 40 overs in two Super Eights matches after the West Indies scored 254-6 against the tournament’s surprise packages on Monday.<\/p>\n
Raza won the toss and opted to play the second game in a row, and again saw his players whipped all over the place.<\/p>\n
Left-handed Abhishek, who had struggled with three ducks in four innings in this tournament, hit four fours and four sixes to return to form.<\/p>\n
Pandya and left-hander Tilak Varma, who made a 16-ball 44, posted an unbeaten stand of 84 in the end but India fell short of the T20 World Cup record of 260-6 achieved by Sri Lanka against Kenya in 2007.<\/p>\n
Wicketkeeper-batsman Sanju Samson returned to the team to break the left-handed opening combination of Abhishek and Ishan Kishan and gave India a flying start.<\/p>\n
Samson fell for 24 to Blessing Muzarabani, but Abhishek kept up the charge, reaching his fifty off 26 balls in a 72-run stand with Kishan (38).<\/p>\n
Abhishek fell to Tinotenda Maposa, caught from long on, but his hit set the stage for a big total. Captain Suryakumar made 33 off 13 balls.<\/p>\n
Pandya finished with a flourish with two sixes off Brad Evans to reach 50 on the last ball of the innings.<\/p>\n
\nSource: https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1975920\/india-thrash-zimbabwe-in-t20-world-cup-south-africa-reserve-spot-in-semi-finals<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Defending champions India thrashed Zimbabwe by 72 runs in their Super Eights T20 World Cup match on Thursday, a result that guaranteed South Africa a place in the semi-finals. India posted a mammoth 256-4 and then restricted Zimbabwe to 184-6 in Chennai to make their clash with the West Indies in Kolkata on Sunday a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18437,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18436"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18438,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18436\/revisions\/18438"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}