Shahid Afridi Sweeps Pakistan Into World Twenty20 Final

Shahid Afridi swept Pakistan into the World Twenty20 final on a passionate night in Nottingham, proclaiming in the process that they can still remain a force in international cricket despite the terrorism that has torn them asunder.

South Africa's run of semi-final defeats continues, but they were so outplayed that it is difficult to accuse them of choking once more. They were obliterated, with Afridi reawakening a largely dormant career with 51 from 34 balls – his first Pakistan fifty in all formats for 29 matches – and dispatching Herschelle Gibbs and AB de Villiers in the space of three balls.

Pakistan's cricket has long been entirely unpredictable and that restive nature seems even more apt now that they have been consigned to the lifestyle of a travelling circus, unable to play in their own country since the terrorist attack on the Sri Lanka team coach in Lahore in March.

Their victory was not without trauma. Umar Gul, the best bowler in the tournament, lost his run three consecutive times in the penultimate over, as if the occasion had temporarily become too much. And it was Gul who had earlier dropped Graeme Smith at mid-on, entirely failing to gather a skier as he back-pedaled and banging his head on the turf in the process.

South Africa, beaten for the first time, limped to the last over still 23 short of their victory target of 150, about par for a slow, turning pitch. JP Duminy struck Mohammad Amir's second ball, a low full toss, for six, but when Fawad Alam ran out Albie Morkel next ball with a direct hit from 40 yards it confirmed that the magic rested with Pakistan.

Pakistan's victory came despite what seemed to be an unacceptable intervention by the Australian umpire Steve Davis in the wake of the ball-tampering allegations made by New Zealand against Gul. Davis seemed to tell Pakistan's fielders not to throw the ball into the stumps on the bounce, in an attempt to roughen up the ball more quickly. It was a perfectly legitimate tactic and Davis's admonishment, if so it was, smacked of an attempt to impose arbitrary and unfair restrictions.

There has been much talk, justifiably, of the new South Africa, but last night it was the old South Africa that sustained them. Jacques Kallis, with bat and ball, remains largely wedded to orthodoxy and it was his 64 from 54 balls that kept them in contention before, with 39 needed from three overs, he went aerial against the off-spin of Saeed Ajmal and was confidently caught at long-on by Shoiab Malik.

This Trent Bridge surface perfectly suited Afridi's leg-spin. Gibbs's was bowled at the end of his first over, dangling his bat impotently in expectation of non-existent turn. De Villiers survived an edge to the wicketkeeper, Kamran Akmal, but chopped his next ball onto his stumps.

From the start of the match, every South African moment was evidence about their choking potential. Evidence that they would not came with Albie Morkel's fine catch, running back from mid-on, to dismiss Shahzaib Hasan. Evidence that they might came with Smith's lumbering misfield during Kamran Akmal's pop-from-a-bottle start to Pakistan's innings.

Afridi's promotion to No3 was Pakistan's wild card, and his 51 from 34 balls justified it. It has never been possible to ascribe logic to an Afridi innings. There is none. Even before the advent of Twenty20, no matter how serious the circumstances, he was thoroughly recalcitrant.

He only averages 15 in 41 Twenty20 matches, and he started scratchily, barely looking at the bowler's approach initially. But he is a perpetual menace, occasionally contained but never controlled.

From the depths of his memory, he summoned what his former coach Geoff Lawson concluded was his "best innings for two years".

In a tournament were variety of shot is supposedly crucial, Afridi survived by repetition. First he took 10 from three balls, all pulls off Kallis. Then he took a liking to the off-spin of Johan Botha making room to strike three successive balls over extra cover. Then, with his fifty, came a hurried change of bat, a disrespectful smite at Duminy's first ball, and a vertical catch to De Villiers at midwicket.

Shoaib Malik's 34 from 39 balls never really convinced, and the final spurt never quite came, their last 26 balls bringing only 25. In that period, South Africa did not concede a boundary. At the centre of this unremitting professionalism was Wayne Parnell, a 19-year-old fast bowler with nerves of steel, again aggressive, rhythmic and entirely unfazed. South Africa felt confident, but it was not to last.