- Semi-final: England, 170-0, bt India, 168-5, by 10 wickets
- Hales (86*) and Buttler (80*) finish off India alone in superb style
England somersaulted and cartwheeled their way to a stunning and historic thrashing of India in Adelaide to rocket into the T20 World Cup final, as Alex Hales and Jos Buttler took what at the halfway stage looked a testing target and toyed with it like a cat might a ball of wool, making it look approximately as threatening, to lead their side home with all 10 wickets and fully four overs to spare.
Chasing 169, Hales (who scored 86 off 47) and Buttler (80 off 49) produced not just the largest but in any sense you like the greatest opening partnership in England’s T20 history (Hales has now been involved in all of England’s top five). By the end India were a rabble; there was an all-run four, vanishingly rare in this format, when Mohammed Shami fielded and tried to toss the ball to a teammate but missed, and another boundary when Buttler skied the ball over mid-off and Suryakumar Yadav not only dropped the catch – a difficult one, to be fair, with the ball dropping over his shoulder – but shovelled the ball a further 10 yards to the rope.
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