![\"Aiden](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/33115e52bee13034e6f3c42fba1bf410.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nIndia has posted the second-highest total in the history of the men’s T20 World Cup, beating Zimbabwe and ultimately helping South Africa into the semifinals.<\/p>\n
India’s batters gave home fans a show of sixes in a 72-run win over Zimbabwe in the Super Eights after South Africa beat West Indies by nine wickets.<\/p>\n
Hardik Pandya scored 50 not out off 23 balls, Tilak Varma smashed 44 not out off only 16 deliveries and Abhishek Sharma found form with a 30-ball 55 in defending champion India’s 4-256 in 20 overs \u2014 second only to Sri Lanka’s 6-260 against Kenya at the 2007 edition.<\/p>\n
Zimbabwe reached 184-6 in its 20 overs, with opener Brian Bennett ending on 97 not out with six sixes in his 59-ball innings in Chennai.<\/p>\n
India hit 17 sixes in all \u2014 its highest in a T20 World Cup innings \u2014 after Zimbabwe won the toss and opted to bowl.<\/p>\n
Sanju Samson made 24 off 15 balls to give Sharma some respite at the top. Sharma, the top-ranked T20 batter, then regained his touch with four sixes on his way to a 26-ball 50 \u2014 his first in five games this tournament.<\/p>\n
Sharma and Ishan Kishan (38) put on 72 off 42 balls. Suryakumar Yadav \u2014 dropped on eight \u2014 scored 33 off 13 balls.<\/p>\n
Pandya and Varma lit up the night sky with eight sixes shared between them. India’s previous highest-ever men’s T20 World Cup score was 218-4 versus England in 2007.<\/p>\n
Zimbabwe made 44 in the powerplay but was 73-2 at the halfway mark. The innings lost momentum when Arshdeep Singh (3-24) struck twice \u2014 Sikandar Raza was caught for 31, while Ryan Burl was lbw for a two-ball duck.<\/p>\n
India’s win secured a place in the semifinals for South Africa after its dominant win over the West Indies in Ahmedabad.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Aiden Markram clattered an unbeaten 82 off 46 balls. (Getty Images: Matt Roberts\/ICC)<\/p>\n
A whirlwind 95-run opening partnership between captain Aiden Markram (82 not out) and Quinton de Kock (47) in eight overs made short work of South Africa’s chase. Ryan Rickelton added 45 not out and South Africa motored to 177-1 in 16.1 overs and stretched its unbeaten record in the tournament to six games, four of the wins in Ahmedabad.<\/p>\n
West Indies put up 8-176 after being reduced to 7-83 as seamers Romario Shepherd and Jason Holder batted their side to respectability.<\/p>\n
Shepherd (52 not out) and Holder (49) lifted West Indies with a remarkable 89-run stand for the eighth wicket, with Shepherd notching his maiden T20 half-century as they pushed the accelerator in the death overs.<\/p>\n
Holder smashed Marco Jansen for 23 runs in the 18th over before he was run out in the 20th. Shepherd completed his half-century with an inside edge off the final ball of the innings, but South Africa kept the score under-par by about 50 runs.<\/p>\n
The Proteas play Zimbabwe in their last Super Eights game on Sunday in Delhi, when West Indies, which had been unbeaten at this edition, faces co-host India in Kolkata. The winner in Kolkata will advance with South Africa to the semifinals from Group 1.<\/p>\n
Markram smashed seven boundaries and four sixes in his 82 not out off 46 balls. De Kock hit four sixes and four boundaries in a 24-ball 47. Rickelton maintained the express scoring with 45 not out off 28 balls as South Africa won with 3.5 overs to spare.<\/p>\n
Earlier, in a frenetic power play, the West Indies was down to 52-4. South Africa also dropped three catches in the first six overs.<\/p>\n
Kagiso Rabada took 2-22 in four overs and Lungi Ngidi had 3-30, also in four overs.<\/p>\n
AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"India has posted the second-highest total in the history of the men’s T20 World Cup, beating Zimbabwe and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,1209,1183,85,23287,241665,1212,41283],"class_list":{"0":"post-506414","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-india","12":"tag-south-africa","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-t20","15":"tag-twenty20-world-cup","16":"tag-west-indies","17":"tag-zimbabwe"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}