South Africa has scored a hat-trick of wins in the ICC T20 World Cup 2026. Thanks to Aiden Markram’s captaincy innings of unbeaten 88 runs in 44 balls, the South African team has almost confirmed its place in the Super-8 by defeating New Zealand by 7 wickets. In the Group-D match played in Ahmedabad on Saturday (14 February), the Proteas team restricted the Kiwis to a score of 175/7 and then registered victory with 17 balls remaining.
Apart from Markram, Quinton de Kock (20), Ryan Rickleton (21), Dewald Brewis (21) and David Miller (24 not out) made useful contributions. Jacob Duffy was very expensive for New Zealand. He gave away 50 runs in 3 overs. Matt Henry spent 38 runs in 4 overs. Both the strike bowlers remained vacant, due to which the Kiwi team had to suffer a crushing defeat.
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New Zealand fell to Marco Yanson
New Zealand, who came to bat first after losing the toss, had made a good start but Marco Yanson’s triple strike sent them on the backfoot. After taking the wicket of Tim Seifert (13) in the fourth over, Yanson dismissed Finn Allen (32) and Rachin Ravindra (13) in the last over of the powerplay. The New Zealand team had not even recovered from these shocks when Keshav Maharaj clean bowled Glenn Phillips (1).
After the fall of 4 wickets for 64 runs, Mark Chapman and Daryl Mitchell saved New Zealand by making a half-century partnership but Johnson once again wreaked havoc on the Kiwi team. Yanson derailed New Zealand’s innings by taking the wicket of Chapman (48) on the last ball of the 14th over. After this, the Kiwi team could score only 37 runs in the last 6 overs.
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Santner scored 4 runs in 10 balls
Mitchell Santner scored only 4 runs in 10 balls. Jimmy Neeson, who came in at number eight, scored unbeaten 23 runs in 15 balls to take New Zealand beyond 170 but it was insufficient.
Yanson gave 40 runs in his spell of 4 overs and took 4 important wickets. He was awarded the Player of the Match award. Lungi Ngidi, Keshav Maharaj and Corbin Bosch got one success each.
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