India has thrashed sorry England in their Twenty20 World Cup semi-final in Guyana to reach the trophy decider.
India posted 7-171 from its 20 overs, before bowling reigning T20 champions England out for 103 inside 17 overs.
India will face South Africa on Sunday at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados in a battle of the two unbeaten teams of the tournament.
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“India outplayed us, certainly,” England captain Jos Buttler said.
“We let them maybe get 20-25 too many on a challenging surface that they played well on. They fully deserved to win.
“Two years on, different conditions, it looks very different. India played the game very well.
“With the rain around, we didn’t think the conditions would change and they didn’t – they just outplayed us and got a very good score. I don’t think the toss was the difference between us.
“They’ve got some fantastic spinners. Our two bowled well but in hindsight, yeah, probably should’ve bowled Moeen in our innings with the way spin was playing. But with a good score and their brilliant bowling attack it was always going to be a tough chase.
“With everything that’s happened in the tournament I’m really proud of the group’s efforts. We can only play who’s in front of us.
“We’ve had a lot of adversity but we have stuck together really well, we played good cricket in patches but unfortunately came up short when we needed it most.”
Captain Rohit Sharma’s (57) second half-century helped India and Suryakumar Yadav also blunted the England pace and spin with a vital knock of 47 off 36 balls after more than two and a half hours of play was lost due to rain and wet outfield.
Spinners Axar Patel and the Kuldeep Yadav then combined in for 6-42 through some sharp turners as England got bowled out for 103 in 16.3 overs on a skiddy, low pitch devoid of grass to bow out of the tournament.
Captain Jos Buttler smashed four boundaries in his 23 off 15 balls, but once he top-edged reverse sweep off left-arm spinner Patel’s first ball and lobbed a simplest of catches behind the wicket, England kept on losing wickets with regular intervals.
The win was sweet revenge for India, which got hammered by England by 10 wickets in the 2022 World Cup semi-final in Adelaide.
Earlier, Sharma and Yadav combined in a 73-run third wicket stand on a wicket where batters struggled to negotiate the variable bounce of pace and spin.
Virat Kohli’s below-par tournament continued after a wet outfield delayed the toss for 80 minutes and Buttler won the toss and elected to field.
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Kohli took his run tally to disappointing 75 runs in seven games with run-a-ball knock of nine before Reece Topley cramped him for a big shot and hit the top of leg stump.
But Sharma countercharged on a difficult wicket before heavy rain took the players off the field for another 73 minutes when India had reached 2-65 after eight overs.
Sharma reached his 50 after resumption of play with a swept six over fine leg off Sam Curran, and Yadav hammered the left-arm fast bowler to point for a six before both exited in successive overs.
Sharma was undone by a googly from Adil Rashid (1-25) in his last over and was clean bowled, while Yadav was deceived by Jofra Archer’s slower ball and ballooned a catch to long off.
Chris Jordan picked up 3-37 that included the wickets of Hardik Pandya (23) and Shivam Dube off successive balls.
- with AP