Afghanistan vs South Africa – T20 World Cup semifinal: Weather, pitch, toss

Afghanistan face unbeaten South Africa with ‘nothing to lose’ but will be eyeing more history in the T20 World Cup 2024.

Who: Afghanistan vs South Africa
What: ICC T20 World Cup 2024 semifinal
When: Wednesday, June 26, 8:30pm local time (00:30 GMT, June 27)
Where: Brian Lara Cricket Academy, San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago
How to follow: Al Jazeera’s live coverage begins at 19:30 GMT

Fourteen years after making their debut at the ICC T20 Cricket World Cup, Afghanistan find themselves in dreamland.

A country that picked up the game amid a war, practised and perfected it mostly on foreign pitches, and grew to love it madly through calamities, has reached its first semifinal of an ICC men’s World Cup within a remarkably short timeframe.

When Rashid Khan leads his team out on the field at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy Ground on Wednesday night, he’ll be hoping to make Trinidad and Tobago’s most famous son proud.

After all, as Rashid revealed in his comments after beating Bangladesh, Brian Lara was the only cricket pundit to have listed Afghanistan as one of his pre-tournament favourites.

“The only guy who put us in the semifinals was Brian Lara and we proved him right,” Rashid said.

“When we met him at a welcome party, I told him we won’t let you down.”