New Delhi, Aug. 10 -- Nobody scripted Hardik Pandya for this. The last over of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2024 final started with South Africa needing sixteen runs. Kensington Oval, Barbados. Six deliveries. Pandya gave up 9. India won by 7 runs and claimed their second T20 world title - the first in seventeen years.

India setting a stiff target off a Virat Kohli innings that he would later describe as the most important of his T20 career, South Africa pressing back with Heinrich Klaasen threatening to rewrite the result entirely in the last five overs. That Klaasen could not finish it, and that Pandya could, is the whole story of the 2024 final.

Kohli's 76 off 59 balls was the innings that built the target. He did not arrive at his be...