‘It’s nice to see the ball swing in T20 cricket’

Pace spearhead Kagiso Rabada stood out with figures of 3-20 to help South Africa boost their semi-final hopes at the Twenty20 World Cup with a six-wicket win over Bangladesh yesterday.

Rabada came all guns blazing after South Africa elected to field first and sent back Mohammed Naim, for nine, and Soumya Sarkar, for nought, to be on a hat-trick.

Mushfiqur Rahim denied Rabada his third successive wicket on the first ball of his next over but got out three deliveries later without scoring.

"That wicket favoured the seamers and I'm just glad that today was my day. It's nice to see the ball swing, especially in T20 cricket, but it wasn't a surprise, having seen that happen in the IPL games here. There's a bit of bounce here, but it's a bit two-paced, some balls skid through, but it's probably the quickest wicket here [in the UAE]," said player-of-the-match Rabada after the match.

"It was a good day for us. Quite a lot in the wicket early on, and KG and Nortje were able to exploit it. It excites us. The conditions reminded us of playing at home. It's never easy when you have one guy bowling 150 and another guy in KG who's got all the skill in the world," said South Africa skipper Temba Bavuma.