Glenn Phillips dropped a catch. South Africa recovered from the shock of hitting the ball in the air in the vicinity of New Zealand's most athletic fielder and were busy collecting the bonus runs. Daryl Mitchell came in to mop up.
Now the camera loves Phillips and often captures him in flagrant disregard for earth's gravity but here he was face down on the ground. David Miller had been given a life. South Africa had recovered from this exact position against India to beat them earlier in the T20 World Cup. The camera panned to Phillips again - finally upright - and he had a big ole smile on his face as he recounted why he was unable to take the catch to one of the New Zealand support staff on the other side of the boundary rope.
Rachin Ravindra, who had dropped Aiden Markram earlier, was also evading the clutches of regret. He was at midwicket when he made the mistake and he stayed there, desperate to stop quick singles, eager for the next opportunity. After New Zealand booked their spot in the final, their match-winner Finn Allen said "I think it just shows that us as a team, we get up for the fight. Those important fixtures, we really get up for them as a team. We're prepared to fight till the end."
The Phillips drop happened at 9.1. Ravindra at 3.3. There was a lot of work left to do. Mitchell Santner made sure everybody knew exactly this. He was nominally a fielder at mid-on and mid-off but really he was a sounding board for the bowlers. Matt Henry, who had flown back into Kolkata mere hours before an ICC tournament semi-final, barely bowled a ball without a captain's consult. Two years ago, Santner, who was not captain, spoke about how New Zealand's build up to that T20 World Cup was chaotic. Here he was in charge, his team was a few good decisions away from a place in the final and he was leaving nothing to chance.
Enough of it had already been left to chance. Adam Milne was all set to play his first World Cup since 2021. He got injured. Michael Bracewell was meant to be their first-choice batting allrounder in subcontinent conditions. He got injured. Henry "was always going to go home" for the birth of his child. So too was Lockie Ferguson. That's an entire bowling attack thrown into uncertainty.
Ravindra fell ill during the warm-up games. James Neesham was huffing and puffing so bad after bowling one over in Chennai that Santner thought better of bringing him on for another. Santner himself ate a dodgy burger and missed a group game. In a strange way, all that's gone on with New Zealand at this tournament has made sure they had an easier time forgetting about the last one, where they arrived in separate groups from the IPL, had no time to gel and couldn't move on from the group stage.
"It feels like we've been sort of dodging a number of different situations almost every game that we've played," New Zealand coach Rob Walter said with a chuckle prior to the semi-final in Kolkata. "But managed to find a way to get the job done again, its' a representation of the team and howe we operate and how well the players just adjust and respond to what's in front of them but as the tournament's gone on.
"Again it's just the connectedness and the cohesion of the team which stands out when these things happen. We've been thrown sort of curve balls just before tosses and managed to still get the job done which is brilliant."
New Zealand had kept themselves apprised of the back-up options available to them with every first-teamer who went down - the best one turning out to be Cole McConchie who was plucked out of the Canterbury side meant to play the Ford Trophy final and dropped into the New Zealand side pushing to make the World Cup knockouts.
Canterbury lost the title and McConchie was none too happy about that but perhaps the role he has played for New Zealand, scoring crucial runs against Sri Lanka and picking up the wickets of Quinton de Kock and Ryan Rickelton at Eden Gardens - will help ease the pain.
Bringing a guy who was already playing big games - albeit in domestic cricket - with a comparable skillset to the player they lost - Bracewell - and seeing beyond his inexperience - McConchie hadn't played international cricket in two years before he was thrown straight into the XI the day after arriving in Chennai - is a very New Zealand thing to do.
So too is coping with unexpectedly batting friendly conditions in Chennai, enormously spin-friendly conditions in Colombo and seeing the one upside to facing a team that trounced them earlier in the tournament.
"We faced [South Africa] in Ahmedabad which I think is a venue they've grown pretty used to given they've spent a fair bit of time there. The semi-finals will be in a different venue," Walter said before what went down at Eden Gardens. "It will provide a different challenge and I think that really suits us because it gives us an opportunity to adapt to those conditions pretty quickly which is something that we've done well and do do well. Whilst they've been playing very good cricket obviously believe we can beat them and the change of conditions and venue works in our favour. Just takes one bad day for a team that's been played well. We need to be ready and play our best cricket and of course we've got a great chance of winning the game"
The really bad game that New Zealand had to deal with was the one they let slip against England, losing from a position where they had 42 runs to defend from 18 balls and choosing to bowl Phillips' offspin at the death ahead of Henry and Ferguson with two right-hand batters in the middle.
"A couple of people have had a conversation, if we had bowled two overs of seam and lost the game, then everyone would have been saying, you know, why did we move away from spin when it was working so well," Walter said. "At the end of the day, yes there was maybe small sllightly different things that we might have done - not from a bowling changes point of view but tactically within the overs.
"We'll learn and be all the wiser for it. Glenn as well, it's not a role that he's done very often and he's done it twice now at this World Cup and he bowled exceptionally well leading up to that last over. This just gives him experience really, gives him time on the legs and an understanding of what he might do differently all the same next time around."
There was no coming back from the mistakes they made in West Indies in 2024. In 2026, having been able to do all the things New Zealand teams are known for - finding a way to be more than the sum of their parts, discovering match-winners from out of nowhere and refusing to give up until the last ball - they go into their sixth ICC final in 11 years.