South Africa chose the perfect stage to produced their best cricket of the T20 World Cup as they thrashed Afghanistan by nine wickets and with more than 11 overs to spare in the semi-final to reach the title match of the showpiece event for the first time.
Afghanistan were hoping to emulate their performance against Australia that paved the way for their first foray into the semi-finals of a World Cup. But all their hopes were crushed by some exceptional pace bowling by the Proteas.
Marco Jansen (3-16) spearheaded a relentless attack on Afghanistan's batting line-up on a difficult pitch at the Brian Lara Stadium in Trinidad as the Asian side were dismissed for just 56 off 11.5 overs after they elected to bat.
Fast bowlers Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje maintained the relentless pressure with two wickets each as they decimated the top order.
Left-arm wrist-spinner Tabraiz Shamsi (3-6) took care of the lower order to set up a crushing win and his team's first World Cup final.
In the chase, South Africa lost Quinton de Kock early to Fazalhaq Farooqi.
But Reeza Hendricks (29 not out) and captain Aiden Markram (23 not out) saw them to victory at 60-1 off 8.5 overs. The Proteas will now play the final in Barbados on Saturday where they will face the winners of Thursday's second semi-final between title-holders England and unbeaten India in Guyana.
Rahmanullah Gurbaz, the highest run-scorer at the tournament, and Ibrahim Zadran had been the mainstay of the Afghan batting with three century opening partnerships on their fairytale run to the last four.
Left-arm quick Jansen removed Gurbaz for a duck with just four runs on the board in the opening over, however, and returned in the third over to bowl Gulbadin Naib for nine.
There was no respite from the other end as paceman Rabada (2-14) found a nice line and length to bowl Zadran and Mohammad Nabi for a couple of runs apiece in the fourth over.
The third quick Nortje (2-7) chipped in with a couple of wickets as Afghanistan became the first team to score fewer than 100 runs in a T20 World Cup semi-final.
It was a performance that was well below par. But Afghanistan captain Rashid Khan said his players should be proud of their effort at the tournament.
"We came here before the tournament and if you told us we would be playing the semi-final against South Africa, we would accept that," Rashid said. "We are capable of beating any side.
"Next time when we participate in a tournament like this, we will have the belief. It's about how you manage yourself in those pressure situations against tough teams.
"There is a lot of hard work to be done, especially in the middle order ... We have achieved some good results but when we come back in the tournament, we need to do better, especially in the batting department."
The Proteas are in unchartered territory. They have never played a World Cup final, although they did win the ICC Knockout Trophy in 1998. Captain Markram said he was proud of his team who have not lost a single match so far in the tournament.
"Really chuffed for us to have one more crack at lifting a trophy," Markram said.
"A lot of our games have been really close and I know there's a lot of people back at home in the early hours of the morning waking up, and we've given them a lot of grey hairs.
"So hopefully this evening was a little bit more comforting for them."
“We just wanted to come out in this game and hit our straps, the way we’ve been doing throughout the entire tournament,” pacer Rabada added. “We just felt that we needed to continue in that vein. And today it just happened for us."
