West Indies bowlers Sunil Narine, Samuel Badree stretches. WICB PhotoDHAKA, Bangladesh – Defending Champions West Indies will face Sri Lanka in the first semi-final of the ICC World Twenty20 tournament on Thursday night at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur.
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West Indies finished second behind India in their Super 10 group. They lost the opening match to the India but rebounded to beat Bangladesh by a large margin of 73 runs, defeat Australia in a thrilling contest and Pakistan by a record 84 runs.
First ball on Thursday is 7pm (9am EST).
On the eve of the match, skipper Darren Sammy spoke to the media about his team’s plans for the upcoming match.
“Whenever we play tournaments, on that given day we always focus on that opposition. Cricket is not about what happened before. We defeated them in the World T20 back in 2012 and in the warm-up game here earlier but they have been playing some good cricket and they are good opposition.
“We have a lot of respect for them. At the same time we know what we have to do to win. We will focus on the way we have to play and look to improve on the areas that need improvement.
“We have been peaking at the right time and showing that team spirit and never say die attitude and have a good semi-final like we had at the last tournament,” Sammy said.
“No team has ever defended the title before. When we left the Caribbean, we had that as the motivation factor for us. In the last World Cup, the mantra was: One Team, One Goal and the mission was to win the World Cup.
“This year the mantra is the same: One Team, One Goal, but the mission is to retain the title. It’s something that no team has done before and we are very confident that we can do it. Once we play the brand of cricket that we played in the last three games, there is every possibility that we can.
“But this is cricket and with 20/20 being the shortest format it is about seizing the momentum and we have a fair idea what the Sri Lankans bring to the table.”
