India vs West Indies Semi-Final, World Cup T20-2016: Who goes to the finals ?

Finally, the day(31st march) is here when the hosts of World Cup T20-2016 India meets the West Indies team in the much anticipated Semi-Final match in Wankhede stadium Mumbai.

Image credits: http://t20worldcup2016-livescore.com

Both the teams have their respective expertise in the T20 format with Chris Gayle as one of the most feared batsmen in the world. India on the other hand being has been definitely the favourites throughout the series, having one of the strongest batting line-ups. Virat Kohli has shown the best performance of his career with some back to back match winning spells unbeatable by any other batsman. Although Gayle and Kohli are considered to be the most crucial players from their respective teams to decide the fate of this match, there would be a lot of other factors pushing the best team to the World Cup T20 finals.

Yuvraj Singh has been ruled out of the tournament due to an ankle injury, it appears a  bit of  concern since Kohli, Dhoni and Yuvraj have been the key batsmen from the Indian side during this series. Manish Pandey is most likely to replace Yuvraj for today, it would be noticeable to watch if the top-3 batsmen of the squad Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan and Suresh Raina  perform today.

West Indies  has been performing really well, and other batsmen apart from Gayle have performed when required, their bowling attack also has been considerably good.

Let’s have a look at the teams:

India: 1 Rohit Sharma, 2 Shikhar Dhawan, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Suresh Raina, 5 Manish Pandey, 6 MS Dhoni (capt and wk), 7 Hardik Pandya, 8 Ravindra Jadeja, 9 R Ashwin, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, 11 Ashish Nehra

West Indies: 1 Chris Gayle, 2 Johnson Charles, 3 Lendl Simmons, 4 Marlon Samuels, 5 Denesh Ramdin (wk), 6 Dwayne Bravo, 7 Andre Russell, 8 Darren Sammy (capt), 9 Carlos Brathwaite, 10 Suliemann Benn, 11 Samuel Badree

Talking about the Wankhede pitch, the lowest score by far this tournament has been Afghanistan’s 172 against South Africa. So the toss and who bats first are going to be really crucial.

So, let’s hope that the Men in Blue beat the Windies today and enter the final match with England at Eden Gardens on 3rd April.

It would be a sort Lagaan match again :-)


Article by Rohit Jha