South Africa, set on banishing its ‘choker’ tag, sits one win away from a maiden T20 World Cup final appearance and will take on an Afghanistan side scaling new peaks in the first semifinal at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy in Trinidad on Thursday.
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This will be the fifth match at the venue in this edition of the World Cup, and Afghanistan would want to put its familiarity of the conditions to use, having played here against Papua New Guinea during the group stage.
T20I stats at Brian Lara Cricket Academy in Trinidad
PITCH REPORT
The ground hosted its first international in 2022 and has a fairly new wicket which suits batters. The average first innings score of 137.5 is skewed due to the low totals posted by Associate teams Papua New Guinea and Uganda.
Take out their innings, the average total shoots up to 177 in five innings. A 200-plus total, however, has been posted only once at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy. In the Caribbean Premier League, the highest team score here is 189 for seven by St. Lucia Kings against St. Kitts and Nevis Patriots.
In terms of bowling, pacers have taken 71 wickets at the venue at an average of 18 and an economy just above seven runs an over. The tweakers, on the other hand, have 35 wickets only at an average of 19.82, but a superior economy of 6.71.
TOSS FACTOR
There is no clear trend so far in terms of teams having an advantage after winning the toss. Out of the eight games, teams winning the toss have opted to field seven times. However, only four have registered wins. The only team that won the toss and opted to bat ended up winning.
Teams batting first and bowling first have registered four wins each across the eight games. Given the high-pressure nature of the semifinal on Thursday, the captain winning the toss would want to win the toss and opt to bat.
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