India has to win the World Cup, Day 28: Suryakumar and company will face New Zealand in the final on March 8.

Delhi: So another big milestone was crossed in India’s campaign to win the World Cup and India qualified for the final of the 2026 T20 World Cup by defeating England by 7 runs in the semi-finals. Team India, which was once in danger of playing the semi-finals, will now play the final with New Zealand in Ahmedabad on March 8. Till now, no T20 World Cup winner has defended its title and it would not be surprising if Team India, which is making new records, changes this record too.

The match at Wankhede started with a sensational decision by England with the toss. Till now no one has paid attention to Suryakumar Yadav’s toss policy in T20 International. Did you note that till now they have lost 30 tosses and a big special record is that out of these 30, 28 times the other captain put India to bat as England did in the semi-final at Wankhede. Interestingly, on all these 28 occasions, Surya also said that even if he had won the toss, he would have still batted, that is, he stopped the other captain before he could take any psychological advantage of winning the toss.

On the contrary, when they won the toss, batting first was usually never their preference. Till now, Surya has actually decided to bat first only 5 times after winning the toss and out of these 5, 4 matches were dead rubber and once when India was far ahead in the series. In this semi-final too, India did not allow England to take any advantage of winning the toss by scoring 250+.

During these days, whatever was written about Sanju Samson and Shivam Dubey in the name of performance, both of them strengthened it and played a very important role in India’s victory. Shivam was considered a very underrated player and many experts also raised the question whether he deserves to play regularly in the team? Shivam himself has once again answered this question.

In the end, despite scoring 253 runs, India won by only 7 runs, which is a proof of how tough the competition was in the semi-finals and even till the 20th over of England’s chase started, it was not decided which of these two teams would play the next match in Ahmedabad. Who made the biggest difference to the match? Just a few hours ago it was written that if India has to win the semi-finals, then Boom, Boom, Bumrah will have to play a big role in it. Bumrah did the same and in the match where 499 runs were scored at the cost of 14 wickets in 40 overs, Jasprit Bumrah bowled 1-33 in 4 overs. The enthusiasm of the spectators was palpable and they were shouting ‘Boom, Boom, Bumrah’ even between the balls of his over. Sunil Gavaskar did not like all this.

Discussing India’s victory does not mean that we should not talk about the England team and especially Jacob Bethel. Not a single 100 was scored in the T20 World Cup knockouts till 2025 and two 100s have been scored in 2026. One of these, Jacob Bethel, made it to this semi-final. Similarly, Will Jacques further strengthened his claim of becoming Player of the Tournament. With the bat, Jacques has scored 226 runs in 8 innings at a 177+ strike rate while taking 9 wickets at an average of 21.66. This is one of the best all-round performances in this World Cup. Till now he has also won 4 Man of the Match awards.

Fun Fact:

* The 2003 World Cup Final was the last ICC Knockout match in which Virat Kohli/Rohit Sharma were not in Team India. 23 years later, India played its first ICC knockout match without both of them.

* Now an interesting coincidence related to the 2023 World Cup has come to light:- Then the South African team had lost to a team from Oceania in the semi-finals at the Eden Gardens. India played its semi-final at Wankhede and it was decided that the final would be held at Narendra Modi Stadium. This time also the same sequence is happening.

* Before the 2026 T20 World Cup, the host team had played in the final only once (Sri Lanka in 2012) but lost to West Indies in the final. This time India is the host and is playing the final. outcome?

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