<\/p>\n
Unbeaten throughout almost a month of cricket across the USA and the Caribbean, India and South Africa will face off at the Kensington Oval on Saturday in the T20 World Cup final both looking to end long waits for glory.<\/p>\n
A tournament which has been a mixed bag in terms of quality, entertainment and attendance, has certainly succeeded in setting up a final between the two best teams in the shortest format.<\/p>\n
India crushed<\/a> defending champions England by 68 runs in Guyana on Thursday, the day after South Africa thrashed<\/a> Afghanistan by nine wickets in Trinidad to end a long and agonising wait for a title game.<\/p>\n This will be South Africa\u2019s first senior men\u2019s final since the inaugural Champions Trophy in Bangladesh in 1998 when the Proteas beat the West Indies in the title match.<\/p>\n Over the years they have been labelled \u2018chokers<\/a>\u2019 by their critics and had many questions about how a nation that has produced so many talented players, hasn\u2019t been able to make a final for 26 years.<\/p>\n Skipper Aiden Markram was part of the team which were beaten<\/a> by Australia in the ODI World Cup last year but says the players haven\u2019t reflected much on the years of near-misses and disappointments.<\/p>\n \u201cWe haven\u2019t spoken about it to be honest. I think it\u2019s a personal and individual motivation that you get to a final; to earn the opportunity to hopefully lift the trophy,\u201d he said after the win over the Afghans.<\/p>\n \u201cSo you reflect back to five months ago we couldn\u2019t get over the line in that semi-final and you look at (here) a few things went our way. We managed to win the game and we found ourselves in the final.\u201d<\/p>\n Certainly, there has been no hint that South Africa have lacked belief in this tournament \u2014 they topped Group D with a 100 per cent record including wins over Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.<\/p>\n Then in the Super Eights, they won all three games with victories over England and co-hosts West Indies and the USA.<\/p>\n \u201cThis team\u2019s been together for a long time now as a whiteball group, both formats. We feel and we believe that we can compete with the best in the world and we can win trophies. And it\u2019s nice for us to now have that opportunity,\u201d Markram said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou do get belief though from winning close games and potentially winning games that you thought you weren\u2019t going to win. It does a lot for your changing room and the vibe in the changing room. So, we\u2019ll take a little bit of confidence from that and see if we can put it to any use in the final,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n India have the chance to banish the memory<\/a> of their loss to Australia in the final of the 50-over World Cup on home soil last year.<\/p>\n Despite India being the epicentre of the T20 game, through the hugely successful Indian Premier League competition, their only triumph in this competition came 17 years ago.<\/p>\n India\u2019s last trophy of any kind<\/a> was the Champions Trophy in 2013.<\/p>\n But the team have taken care of their business with little drama, beating<\/a> arch-rivals Pakistan in New York and going on to win their group before a key win<\/a> over Australia in the Super Eights.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been very calm,\u201d said captain Rohit Sharma.<\/p>\n \u201cWe understand the occasion of the final. It\u2019s important we stay composed because that helps you make good decisions. We have been very steady, and calm, and that has been the key for us,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n It was India\u2019s spinners who were the heroes against England with left-armers Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel taking three wickets each.<\/p>\n But they also possess one of the most effective quick bowlers in the format in Jasprit Bumrah.<\/p>\n Rohit, 37, and fellow opener Virat Kohli, 35, came into this tournament looking for glory in what could well be their final tournament.<\/p>\n While Rohit has made more runs, 248, than any player in the final, Kohli has disappointed with just 75 runs in seven innings but has the perfect stage on which to make that form irrelevant.<\/p>\n The historic home of West Indies cricket should produce the right atmosphere with a large contingent of Indian supporters, as always, expected at the game.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Unbeaten throughout almost a month of cricket across the USA and the Caribbean, India and South Africa will face off at the Kensington Oval on Saturday in the T20 World Cup final both looking to end long waits for glory. A tournament which has been a mixed bag in terms of quality, entertainment and attendance, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81916,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"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-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":"","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-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":"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":""},"mobile":{"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":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2024\/06\/28225037e4b14e3.jpg?r=225053","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Belief<\/h2>\n