India secured a spot in the semi-finals with a stunning run-chase victory over West Indies and eliminated their opponents from the T20 World Cup with a five-wicket win in the final Super 8s match.
Sanju Samson’s brave innings (97 off 50) broke Virat Kohli’s record for the highest runs by an Indian batsman in a T20 World Cup chase, and he secured the winning points by scoring 10 runs off the last two balls, equaling West Indies’ effective total of 195 with four balls remaining.
India will take on England in Mumbai in the T20 World Cup semi-final, which will be broadcast live on Sky Sports on Thursday, March 5 from 1:30pm GMT.
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Sanju Samson scored an unbeaten 97 as India defeated West Indies by five wickets in the T20 World Cup and will now face England in the semi-finals.
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Highlights of the T20 World Cup as India defeats Zimbabwe by 72 runs and aims to advance to the semi-finals.
Back-to-back midfield hits from Jason Holder (37 off 22) and Rovman Powell (34 off 19), coupled with useful scoring from captain Shai Hope (32 off 33) and fellow opener Roston Chase (40 off 25), helped the West Indies defend their defense with an effective total of 195 wins and 4 losses.
The Hope side retained hope with the early wickets of struggling opener Abhishek Sharma (11 for 10) and No. 3 Ishan Kishan (6 for 10), but captain Suryakumar Yadav (18 for 16) was caught in the 10th over, putting pressure on the hosts.
However, India’s middle order remained strong. Tilak Verma (27 off 15) once again boosted the run rate and West Indies conceded a dropped catch from Jason Holder to Hardik Pandya (17 off 16) in the 16th over, but they were disappointed as the high-scoring number six combined well with Samson.
The opener teamed up with the composed Shivam Dube (4 goals, 8 points) to welcome his side home and capped off a record-breaking performance with two goals to the delight of the Kolkata crowd.
England face familiar foes in T20 World Cup in India
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Full highlights from Colombo as Will Jacks and Rehan Ahmed lead England to a four-wicket win over New Zealand in the T20 World Cup
India’s win today means England will face India in the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup for the third consecutive year.
The two teams have met on the same stage twice in the past, with England defeating their rivals by 10 wickets in Adelaide in 2022, and India exacting revenge with a 68-run victory in Guyana two years ago.
The winners of both matches went on to lift the trophy and India set up a much-awaited trilogy against Harry Brook’s side.
It was a little more than a year ago that India defeated England 4-1 in a bilateral T20 series that ended with a 150-run victory at the Wankhede Stadium, where both teams will face each other later this week.
India, backed by Abhishek Sharma’s 135 runs in February last year, scored 247 runs in nine wins, which unfortunately exceeded the total of England’s team, who compiled 97 runs.
India have won nine of the last 12 T20 matches against England, including five of the last six.
Samson: One of the best days of my life
India opener and man of the match Sanju Samson:
“(The innings) means the whole world to me. This is the knock I have been waiting for since the day I started dreaming of playing for the national team.
“I have been playing this format for many years. I learned from many greats like Kohli, Rohit Sharma and MS Dhoni. That helped my experience. I realized how the greats play and how they change their game depending on the situation.
“In the last game we were batting first so we were going to go from one ball, but this game was different. Every time we tried to go high we were losing wickets.
“I never thought I’d get this special knock, but yeah, this is one of the best days of my life.”
Hope: You don’t want to end at this stage.
West Indies captain Shai Hope (AP Photo/Bikas Das)
West Indies captain Shai Hope:
“I thought we did well in the tournament. We adapted to the different conditions. We bowled well, especially in the power play. Akeyar (Hosien) was very good and (Gurkadesh) Motier was the same after he came back into the team. We just couldn’t get over the line today.”
“You don’t want to end at this stage. One more game and we’ll be in the semi-finals and if things go well we’ll be in the final.
“We have to give credit to our players. We set high standards for ourselves. There are no other questions for us. We have to play our best cricket on the day. We have to take the decisive moments and capitalize on them.”
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