England and Australia entered the semifinals of the ICC men’s T20 World Cup after South Africa failed to restrict England to 131 or less after they put up 189/2 in 20 overs in a Super 12 group 1 match in Sharjah on Saturday night.

Dubbed the group of death, it was a tight contest among England, Australia and South Africa. Earlier in the day, Australia beat West Indies comfortably to beat the West Indies and improve their NRR.

In the match, England captain Eoin Morgan won the toss and elected to field, setting up a chase. South Africa posted a competitive total, courtesy of their record partnership of an unbeaten 103 runs between Aiden Markram and HE van der Dussen.

Before this, a 71-run partnership between Dussen and Quinton de Kock set the stage on fire.

In reply, the England batters quickly lost their top-order batsmen after a 38-run partnership between Jason Roy and Jos Buttler. However, the middle-order was steadied by Moeen Ali and Dawid Malan who forged a 51-run partnership.

Looking en route to register a record chase, Kagiso Rabada was smashed for three big sixes by Liam Livingstone to nudge the Proteas out of the tournament on NRR.

However, the South Africa bowlers pegged back in the last couple of overs and recorded a consolation win.

Rabada, who was expensive in the night, had the last laugh by returning home with a fantastic hat-trick. He couldn’t stop smiling after becoming the first SA bowler to achieve the feat.

“The win was important. Bitter-sweet end for us. We achieved what we wanted to – win the game but just couldn’t win it big enough. At the start of the tournament, that (net run rate) was never a factor for us, we just wanted to win games. It’s always tough to make up for that at the back end, especially against a team like England,” the South African captain Temba Bavuma said during a post-match conference.

“The young guys will learn a lot from this. I think this is going to give us a lot of experience and confidence. It’ll give us a lot of knowledge on how to go about things forward,” Bavuma added.