South Africa’s Champions crushed Pakistan by nine wickets in the final of the World Championship of Legends at Edgbaston in Birmingham on Saturday night.
Pakistan’s Champions posted a competitive 195 for five in their 20 overs after winning the toss and opting to bat first.
Opener Sharjeel Khan was the mainstay of their innings, scoring 76 runs from just 44 deliveries.
Umar Amin and Asif Ali also made useful contributions.
Scoring at better than a-run-a-ball, the pair scored 36 and 28 runs respectively, while South Africa’s seamers Hardus Viljoen and Wayne Parnell took four scalps between them.
Captain AB de Villiers once again dictated proceedings in South Africa’s chase.
Dispatching Pakistan’s bowlers to all parts of the ground, De Villiers smashed an unbeaten 120 from just 60 deliveries.
It was his third century in the tournament and having amassed 429 runs he earned both the player of the match and the player of the series awards.
JP Duminy, who clubbed a half-century from just 28 deliveries, scored the winning runs, sealing an impressive nine-wicket victory with more than three overs to spare.
De Villiers thanked his teammates, “To the boys out here, I want to thank every one of them for their commitment. We all know it’s not a big men’s world cup but they came here and decided to take it seriously. We wanted to be competitive out there, we wanted to make South Africa proud and hopefully the people who witnessed this back home are proud of us cos we gave it our absolute best.”
For some Proteas fans, the emphatic win in Edgbaston in the final and the one-run victory over Australia in the semi-final are retribution for South Africa’s epic fail in the World Cup semi-final against the Aussies in 1999.
With a fancy new trophy to boot, South Africa’s Legends squad pocketed more than R3 million in prize money.
South Africa Champions take
home the World Championship of Legends 2025✨ #worldchampionshipoflegends #WCL2025 pic.twitter.com/4MeAjpX7Wu— World Championship Of Legends (@WclLeague) August 2, 2025
