Outstanding Comic Efforts in Making a T20 World Cup Momentarily Worth Paying Attention To (2026) - The South Africa v Afghanistan Group Stage Match

My annual award for the best comedy moment. This year: it's 2026

Feb 16, 2026

AKA Counting Down The Twenty Most Ridiculous Moments of the Last Five Overs of the South Africa-Afghanistan Group Stage Match of the 2026 Men’s T20 World Cup

Traditionally, I wait until the end of the year before awarding my strongest cricketing comedy moment of the year. That’s just the way I was raised.

Not this year. It’s only February, but I can say with absolute certainty that the South Africa-Afghanistan group stage match in the T20 World Cup will not be surpassed in terms of nonsense.

‘How can you be so confident, Dan?’ you might well ask. To which I reply, did you not see the final over (and subsequent overs) and its chart-busting levels of cricketing absurdity density?

To be clear, everything leading up to the final over (and subsequent overs) was also quite mad, but I can’t write about everything (for one thing, I have a dentist appointment shortly). So we’ll just go from the twentieth over of the Afghanistan run chase.

And we won’t write about it in chronological order. Instead, we’ll count down the maddest twenty (20) moments of the last thirty (official) deliveries of the South Africa-Afghanistan group stage match in the 2026 Men’s T20 World Cup.

To be clear, these moments all contain some level of cricketing insanity. We’re just ranking the degrees of craziness involved.

20. The least mad of all the moments is the final one. The last ball of Afghanistan’s chase in the second Super Over requires Rahmanullah Gurbaz to hit a four to send the match to a third Super Over. This is very much within Gurbaz’s set of capabilities. Instead, he slices the ball square to David Miller at point, part of a callback to the second ball of the second Super Over second innings.

19. The first ball of the final over of Afghanistan’s original run chase was a no ball (more on that much later). On the first rebowling of that ball, Kagiso Rabada bowls a leg side wide, and on the second rebowling, Noor Ahmed drills it to long off, where it’s dropped. Not a big deal, because it’s a free hit, but also Noor doesn’t take the single, preferring to remain on strike. Three balls bowled to officially complete the first ball of the final over, two runs in total taken, none off the bat (the original no ball, then the wide), leaving Afghanistan with eleven off five required to win.

18. On the fifth ball of South Africa’s chase in the first Super Over, Tristan Stubbs drives a full ball from Fazalhaq Farooqi straight back to the bowler who fields it safely for a dot, meaning South Africa need seven runs off the final ball of the Super Over to win the match.

17. On the third official ball of the final regular over, Noor clips it to long on and both batters get halfway down the pitch before they stop, weigh up their options and head back from whence they came, abandoning the run, meaning Afghanistan need five runs to win off three balls.

16. On the fourth ball of the South African chase in the first set of Super Overs, new batter at the crease Stubbs bottom-edges the first ball he faces from Farooqi, a yorker, through the vacant first slip for four, reducing South Africa’s target to seven off two balls for victory.

15. On the second official ball of the final regular over, Noor pulls a six over a diving South Africa fielder at deep square leg to reduce the runs required to five off four balls. Dale Steyn on commentary begins the process of losing his mind.

14. First ball of the second Super Over, with South Africa setting a fresh target, Stubbs clobbers Azmat Omarzai over cow corner for six, then plays at a wide ball from Azmat, well outside off stump, pushing it to mid off for a single. Could have left it and had it rebowled, but didn’t, because the madness was all-enveloping by this point.

13. On the first ball of the first Super Over, Lungi Ngidi bowls to Azmat, who slices it backward of point for four, before sending the second ball straight down the ground, where it barely clears leaping Slender Man cosplayer Marco Jansen for six.

12. From the second ball of South Africa’s first Super Over chase, Dewald Brevis pulls a short ball from Farooqi into the stands for six, only to mistime Farooqi’s next delivery - a courageous and insane slower ball, which is top edged, looping to the keeper. Brevis is out and South Africa need eleven off three balls to win

11. On the fourth ball of the final regular over of the run chase, Noor pulls Rabada to cow corner and the batters scramble through for two, aided by some mildly comical South African outfielder fumblehands. As the batters return for the second run, which would have made it three runs required from two balls to win, the no ball siren sounds for the second time in the over. Instead, Afghanistan now need just two off three balls, with a free hit and Noor on strike.

10. On the fifth ball of Afghanistan’s innings in the first Super Over, Azmat slices Ngidi to the deep cover boundary. The ball soars through the air, perhaps for six, or perhaps about to be caught by a diving Rabada. Rabada does indeed catch it, but his trajectory will take him over the rope, so he drops the ball, and it bounces just inside the boundary before following him over the rope for four.

9. In the second Super Over, South Africa’s fourth and fifth balls are a pair of sixes from Miller, both clobbered into the deep mid wicket stands. The second six, in particular, comes from a big full toss from Azmat. So big a full toss that the umpires check if it’s over waist height and, hence, a no ball. It isn’t, instead revealed by ICC tailors to be 19cm below Miller’s waist. However, in the confusion, the television scorecard forgets to update this second six and everybody briefly loses track of how many runs South Africa are scoring. (Spoiler: It’s 23.)

8. On the final ball of Afghanistan’s innings in the first Super Over, both batters are content to take an easy single, ignoring any prospect of a second run, despite the South Africa fielder and keeper both fumbling the ball. This will surely not prove to be an issue.

7. During the change of innings of the first Super Over, at the toss for the Australia-Ireland match in which nobody currently has any interest whatsoever, Travis Head is on television, explaining that he’s captaining the Australia team because Mitch Marsh is out with an injury that ‘no one’s been willing to massage out for him’. (This is later revealed to be internal testicular bleeding.)

6. Chasing an incredibly difficult 24 in the second Super Over, Mohammad Nabi inexplicably opens the batting for Afghanistan, facing up to Keshav Maharaj. Nabi misses the first ball he faces, then slices the second ball straight to Miller at jumping point, leaving Afghanistan needing a virtually impossible 24 off four balls instead.

5. From the final ball of Afghanistan’s chase in the second Super Over, needing six to win, Gurbaz coolly leaves a Maharaj wide ball, to reduce the margin to five runs off one ball. Or, more realistically, perhaps, a four to send the game into a third Super Over.

4. On the final ball of South Africa’s chase in the first Super Over, they need seven runs to win. Stubbs drives a full ball straight down the ground over the top of long on for six. “Tristan Stubbs, you BEAUTY!” roars a carefully neutral Dale Steyn.

3. With 24 runs required off four balls in Afghanistan’s obviously doomed second Super Over chase, Gurbaz, bizarrely overlooked in favour of Nabi, who faced the first two balls, replaces him at the crease, and hits three consecutive sixes. The first two are straight down the ground (the second one, once again, barely clearing Jansen), while the third is over deep mid wicket to reduce the target to six runs off just one ball. “NOOOOOOO!!!!” screams Steyn, abandoning even the pretence of impartiality.

2. On the first ball of the final regular over, with Afghanistan needing thirteen off six to win, with just the one wicket in hand, Noor is caught comfortably at mid on. The game is, for a split second, over. Until the siren sounds revealing that Rabada has overstepped and Afghanistan are, once more, alive, and now need twelve runs off six balls.

1. Facing up to a free hit from Rabada, and with Afghanistan needing just two runs off the final three balls to win, coach Jonathan Trott sends out a message in the guise of a drink. (Or perhaps a drink in the guise of a message.) Either way, the umpires aren’t having it and send him away. Without coaching guidance, Noor squeezes the ball to deep cover, runs the first one hard and returns for the second, match-winning run. Perhaps running less hard, however, is the non-striker, Farooqi, who bizarrely doesn’t slide his bat, or dive, or, indeed, try anything whatsoever to ensure he successfully completes the second - and as a reminder, match-winning - run. Rabada gathers the throw a pace or two from the stumps and he chooses to very much dive, knocking the bails off and running out Farooqi by millimetres. Afghanistan are all out, the final wicket falling on a free hit. The scores are tied. We’re going to a Super Over! (Or two.)