Explained : India reach T20 final in shootout with England and Its Impact

With that, it’s midnight at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai and we’ll sign off for another day and leave you to celebrate a fine win. 

The Delhi team will be up bright and early as always to talk you through tomorrow morning’s big stories. We hope to see you then.

Players on the pitch and spectators around the country cheered the semifinal win over England late on Thursday. 

After each team put on a batting masterclass with a combined 499 runs and 34 sixes — 19 by India and 15 by England — spirits were high in Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium and far beyond. 

India will on Sunday bid to become both the first country to retain the T20 World Cup title, and the first country to win it on home soil. 

However, New Zealand looked in strong form in the semifinals, holding South Africa to just 169 runs, before Finn Allen’s record-breaking unbeaten 100 off just 33 balls. 

The match will take place at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. 

That’s it. India will defend their T20 World Cup title in Sunday’s final against New Zealand. 

Powered by Jacob Bethell’s flamboyant 105, making him the highest scorer of either semifinal, England finished their innings on 246/7.

That would be enough to win many a T20 game, but India’s 253 proved an insurmountable target. 

As against the West Indies, it’s Sanju Samson who’s liable to hog the headlines in India after a second imperious near-century in consecutive games.

But several of India’s bowlers also chipped in with key wickets at important junctures to ensure that dangerous English batters couldn’t find their rhythm alongside Bethell. 

Challenging as the Indian target looked, this game isn’t over quite yet. 

That’s thanks in very large part to Jacob Bethell. His 84 unbeaten runs off 40 balls constitute nearly half of England’s entire total. 

Will Jacks had proved a reliable and longer-lived partner for Bethell, at least for 20 balls, until he fell with 35 runs on the board. 

Another all-rounder, left-hander Sam Curran has now joined the fray. 

England still need 56 runs, in just 20 balls, and have lost five of their strongest batsmen. But nevertheless, it’s looking marginally less hopeless than one might have expected. 

Yes, there is also news beyond cricket. 

An Indian military aircraft is missing from radar contact. It’s a Russian-designed SU-30 MKI that’s made under license in India. 

The Indian Air Force (IAF) said that a search and rescue mission had been initiated, with the plane “reported overdue.” 

“The aircraft had taken off from Jorhat, Assam, and was last in contact at 7:42 p.m.,” the IAF said. “Further details are being ascertained.”

England picked up their scoring rate after drinks as Jacob Bethell and Tom Banton threw caution to the wind, going for repeated sixes and risking an edge or a catch. 

But after Banton had smashed 17 runs off just five deliveries, the aggression came back to bite him.

A slower delivery from Axar Patel made Banton mistime an attempted sweep shot, with the ball sneaking straight through and hitting his stumps. 

Bethell, who’s hit five sixes already, has made a rapid half century. He’s now partnered by all rounder Will Jacks, who just found the boundary a couple of times to score his first runs. 

England were 134 runs short of the target half-way through the innings. 

Hardik Pandya’s first over with the ball could not have gone better for India. 

He gave up just one run in all six balls, and he took the wicket of Phil Salt, who had just 5 runs on the board.

Salt tried to knock Pandya’s first delivery into the crowd but he edged it skyward instead, and Axar Patel made no mistake gathering up the catch. 

England made some more progress before star Indian bowler Jasprit Bumrah joined the attack. He immediately claimed the scalp of captain Harry Brook for just 7 runs.

Jacob Bethell came in for the dismissed skipper and smashed a pair of sixes into the stands.

But before the end of the sixth over, Jos Buttler fell as well for 25. The guests have scored 64/3 at drinks after six overs, well short of the run rate with three of their most dangerous batters already dismissed. 

Operation “nothing to lose” can begin! 

England’s openers Phil Salt and Jos Buttler have faced their first few balls and they might as well look to do as much early damage as possible. Conservative scoring will not be enough. 

In that spirit, they took an impressive 13 off the first over, including three boundaries. But that is more or less exactly the run rate they will need to maintain throughout the innings.

That innings was more or less textbook from the hosts’ perspective.

India have set a towering target for England to chase and only a monumental performance with the bat would ruin the day of what must be an ecstatic home crowd at present. 

Without question Sanju Samson’s 89 was the highlight of the innings, but Ishan Kishan, Shivam Dube, Hardik Pandya and Tilak Varma all played meaningful roles with the bat to build the overall score. 

England’s bowling attack had a pretty miserable outing across the board. Nobody took more than two wickets, everybody was hit for a minimum of 10 runs per over. 

The teams are taking their break now and England’s innnings should start soon. 

We’re entering the last two overs and now’s the time for the hosts to throw caution to the wind. 

Captain Yadav only managed 11 before he was stumped out, as Adil Rashid claimed his second wicket in his fourth and final permitted over bowling. 

Shivam Dube has got his eye in nicely and had 43 runs to his name by the time he was run out going for a risky score. 

Hardik Pandya has since taken to the field, and he’s already found the boundary with three fours, including the one that put India past 200 runs in total. 

Tilak Varma has joined him since Dube’s dismissal and is swinging for the fences. He’s smacked three sixes out of the ground already for a rapid 21.

He hit 97 not out against the West Indies, and has now managed another 89 against England, putting India in pole position at this stage. 

Samson fell in the same way as his opening partner Sharma: caught by Phil Salt off a delivery from Will Jacks. 

With the exception of Jacks, who’s taken two wickets at a cost of 19 runs, none of England’s bowlers have exactly flourished so far. But Liam Dawson, Sam Curran and Jofra Archer in particular have been leaking runs, giving up two or more runs per ball on average.

India stand on 170/3 and still have six overs to bolster that score. Shivam Dube and captain Suryakumar Yadav are at bat.

India are keeping the scoreboard ticking along nicely, thanks in large part to Sanju Samson. 

He’d scored 74 of India’s 126 runs after 36 deliveries, notching a rapid half century.

We’ve just past the half-way stage in the meantime. 

The hosts still have eight wickets to spare and so should be able to start turning up the intensity and taking more risks soon, possibly further increasing their run rate. 

Ishan Kishan built a decent partnership with Sanju as he notched a rapid 39. But he was caught out midway through the tenth over. 

The hosts and defending champions will set a target for England to chase. Captain Harry Brook put India in to bat after winning the toss. 

India’s captain Suryakumar Yadav said he’d hoped to bat first anyway and so was happy with the outcome. 

Abhishek Sharma and wicket keeper Sanju Samson, the hero with the bat in India’s last game against the West Indies, are the first to take the field, giving India left-handed and right-handed firepower from the start. 

Samson starts in fine form, knocking Jofra Archer for a total of 11 runs, a four, a six, a single, before another quick single from Sharma to close out the first over.

An early blow followed for India in the second over, however. Sharma tried to send a delivery from Will Jacks airborne but got underneath it, and Phil Salt took a relatively simple catch, dismissing Sharma for 9 runs.

Samson, who breathed a sigh of relief when captain Brook dropped a simple catch in the third over, is continuing to knock England’s bowlers around at a handy pace. He’s scored 31 off his first 15 deliveries, with six boundaries already.

Polls in Nepal’s general election following widespread youth protests closed at 5 p.m. local time, with the counting process set to start soon after.

Election commission officials said that early trends were likely to emerge on Friday, but also warned that final results could take up to a week. 

As of 3 p.m., with two hours of voting remaining, around half of the country’s 19 million eligible voters had cast ballots. 

“We will work out the final tally of votes cast after the voting closes,” Narayan Prasad Bhattarai, election commission spokesperson said. “As of now in most of the districts voters’ turnout is more than 50%.”

In the last election in 2022, final turnout was 61%. 

The 275 members of parliament will be elected through a mixed electoral system different from but not entirely disimilar to Germany’s. First-past-the-post races will decide who takes up 165 of the seats, while the other 110 will be allocated based on proportional representation.

Mahima’s reached the end of her working day in Delhi and is off for a well-earned bite of dinner and evening to herself. 

This means (with copious apologies for the impropriety!) that an Englishman based in Bonn will be accompanying you through the big game in Mumbai in a few minutes.