Georgetown (Guyana), Jun 28 (IANS): Spinners Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel picked three wickets each to carry India into the 2024 Men’s T20 World Cup title clash against South Africa after outclassing defending champions England by 68 runs in the second semifinal at the Providence Stadium.

After captain Rohit Sharma slammed his 32nd T20I fifty through a 39-ball 57 and along with Suryakumar Yadav, who struck 47 off 36 balls, helped India post a competitive 171/7 on a tacky pitch, brilliant spells from Axar and Kuldeep led to England falling in a heap as they were bowled out for 103.

Chasing 172, Jos Buttler hit four boundaries, including three off Arshdeep, to give England a strong start with 26 runs coming in the first three overs. But Axar and Jasprit Bumrah joined forces to leave England in tatters. On Axar’s first ball, Buttler looked to reverse-sweep but gave a top edge to keeper Rishabh Pant.

Bumrah brought out his off-cutter to rattle Phil Salt’s leg-stump, followed by Axar getting one to stay low and hit Bairstow’s off-stump to dismiss him for a duck, as England ended power-play at 39/3.

Things went from bad to worse for England as Moeen Ali tried to flick off Axar, but the ball lobbed off his thigh pad, and as he wandered out of the crease, Pant collected the ball to stump him quickly.

Kuldeep arrived to push England further on backfoot by trapping Sam Curran plumb lbw in front of the middle stump, ratting a reverse-sweeping Harry Brook’s leg-stump and got one to spin back in to trap Chris Jordan lbw.

Mix-ups resulted in runouts of Liam Livingstone and Adil Rashid, and when Bumrah trapped Jofra Archer lbw, it triggered jubilant scenes as the ghost of Adelaide 2022 was firmly laid to rest in Guyana 2024, with the dream to win the elusive trophy still on course for a dominating India.

Brief scores:

India 171/7 in 20 overs (Rohit Sharma 57, Suryakumar Yadav 47; Chris Jordan 3-37, Adil Rashid 1-25) beat England 103 in 16.4 overs (Harry Brook 25; Kuldeep Yadav 3-19, Axar Patel 3-23) by 68 runs