India vs South Africa, T20 World Cup Final: How the Barbados pitch is expected to behave in title clash

One final hurdle is that all that remains for India to end their decade-long ICC trophy drought. And facing them in the summit clash of the 2024 T20 World Cup is a team that has been enduring heartbreaks in major events for an even longer period of time — South Africa.

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Both the Men in Blue and the Proteas have stormed into the final unbeaten. While India had their final group match against Canada rained off, South Africa have won each of their eight matches so far, even if a lot of those games were nervy affairs that ended on a tense note.

Both teams dished out clinical performances in their semi-final clashes and stormed into the final with lopsided victories. South Africa won their first-ever men’s World Cup final — ODI or T20 — on Wednesday (early Thursday morning in India) when they bundled maiden semi-finalists Afghanistan out for 56 at the Brian Lara Stadium in Tarouba, Trinidad and Tobago, and chased the target in 8.5 overs with nine wickets to spare.

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India, on the other hand, avenged their humiliating 10-wicket thrashing at the hands of the Jos Buttler-led England in Adelaide in the 2022 edition by handing them a 68-run thrashing in the second semi-final at the Providence Stadium in Georgetown, Guyana, posting a challenging 171/7 on the board after being invited to bat and bundling the defending champions out for 103 to send them packing.

One of the things that was common in the two semi-final fixtures was the fact that both India and South Africa had used the challenging batting conditions in their respective matches to their advantage.

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The Afghans proved no match for the well-rounded Proteas attack and went out with a whimper after an inspirational run in which they defeated heavyweights such as Australia and New Zealand.

India ended up collecting 20-25 additional runs on a tricky Guyana wicket, which gave their bowlers — especially their spinners — enough cushion to take 10 English wickets.

Will it be a similar story at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown where the two remaining teams in the ninth edition of the T20 World Cup lock horns on Saturday? Here’s what we know:

How the Barbados pitch is expected to behave?

The Kensington Oval has largely been favourable to batters in this T20 World Cup, and has been one of the more lively surfaces along with the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua and the Daren Sammy Stadium in St Lucia.

While South Africa are yet to play a match at this venue in the ongoing tournament, India had posted a match-winning 181/8 against Afghanistan in their first Super 8 clash — which also happened to be their first match of the tournament in the Caribbean.

Australia had posted 201 in their 36-run victory over arch-rivals England before the India-Afghanistan fixture, while both England and West Indies romped to comfortable victories over USA at this venue in the second round — the Windies chasing down a target of 129 in just 10.5 overs and England chasing down 116 in 9.4. Compared to what batters would have had to put up with in venues such as New York, as well as Guyana and Trinidad, Barbados would certainly be a welcome change for them.

The average first innings score at this venue in the last 10 T20 fixtures has been 159, and teams batting first have generally fared better at this iconic venue. England though are a notable exception as they had chased down a target of 148 with seven wickets to spare against Australia in the final of the 2010 edition at this very venue.

Both India and South Africa are packed with power hitters in their lineup with the former extending their batting order by including spin-bowling all-rounders Axar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja in addition to seam-bowling all-rounders Hardik Pandya and Shivam Dube.

Additionally, the venue has more support for quicks than tweakers and both teams have world-class talent in that department as well. Should ultimately make for a cracker of a final!