Finn Allen’s thunderclap becomes instant folklore at T20 World Cup

KOLKATA: The morning after, it all still felt slightly unreal. As if Eden Gardens briefly slipped out of normal time and nobody told South Africa. Semifinals are meant to be nervy, nail-biting affairs, not a one-sided knockout blow, that too from the underdog team.

Finn Allen’s unbeaten 33-ball century, however, did all that and more as New Zealand barged into the T20 World Cup final by beating South Africa. The knock was a highlights reel that will be played years from now.Back home, many in New Zealand would have been watching through heavy eyelids. The Allen family in Auckland, however, had no chance of sleep as their son went hammer and tongs and made a formidable South African attack look pedestrian.

“I’m sure my parents were up watching the whole game. Hopefully they’re proud,” Allen said with a smile after the game.

The numbers will do the rounds for years, because they have to: 100* off 33 balls, the fastest century in a men’s T20 World Cup match, with 10 fours and eight sixes and 88 runs in boundaries. It’s the kind of arithmetic that looks like a misprint until you remember you saw it live.The real shock wasn’t just Finn’s rate of scoring, it was the ease with which he made quality bowling feel optional.

South Africa’s plans barely had time to take shape before they were being hit back into the stands. One moment the chase seemed a contest, the next it was Allen picking his spots, trusting his swing and stretching the bounds of the possible.It wasn’t even a one-man ambush from ball one. Tim Seifert was the first to throw the punch, racing ahead while Allen warmed to the night. Allen’s ‘switch’ flicked late in the Powerplay, a single over that became ignition, and the mood of the stadium changed with it.

The rest was a blur of clean strikes and louder disbelief. “We don’t really have a plan, me and Timmy. We just try and be positive and hope for the best,” he said.

Allen’s route here hasn’t been a straight line. He didn’t make an immediate splash after debuting in 2021, but the last year has been a steady accumulation of evidence that this is what he does when the ball is there to be hit. In Major League Cricket, he tore up the format with a 151 featuring a world-record 19 sixes — only for a foot injury to interrupt the surge.The comeback, though, has been emphatic. In the Big Bash League, he was Perth Scorchers’ title-driving force: 466 runs, and a competition record 38 sixes — a season-long trailer for the mayhem he would later unleash at Eden.No wonder Kolkata Knight Riders moved quickly at the IPL auction, snapping him up for Rs 2 crore — a signing that already feels like a steal in a summer of power-hitters. For all the battering up front, Allen was careful not to frame it as a solo act.

He pointed to New Zealand’s bowlers for setting the tone, especially in the Powerplay, and for refusing to let South Africa’s muscle settle.“The bowlers set the tone for us by taking early wickets on what we thought was going to be a really good batting wicket. They’ve (South Africa) got an incredibly powerful batting line-up and hats off to the boys with the ball,” he said.He also underlined the value of the group-stage lesson against the same opposition — the kind of detail that gets lost once an innings like this takes over the story.

“We looked closely at that first game against them,” he said. “Playing them earlier gave us a bit of insight into their plans and we tried to use that to our advantage,” he confided.Even the toss, Allen suggested, mattered — and New Zealand made sure the first small win didn’t go to waste. “We just hoped (Mitch) Santner would win a toss and he did that. So that was the first part done. From then onwards it was just, take the bull by the horns.

Take the game on, not shy away from any challenge,” he explained.On the team’s chances in the final, Allen said, “It’s a new opposition, under different conditions. We just look to take the positives out of this game and get a flight to Ahmedabad and start again. I think if we play our best cricket we can beat just about anybody.”SCORES: New Zealand 173/1 in 12.5 overs (Allen 100*, Seifert 58; Rabada 1-28) beat South Africa 169/8 (Jansen 55*; McConchie 2-9, Ravindra 2-29, Henry 2-34) by 9 wickets.