After closely fought battles between 6 teams at the Road Safety World Series, we have four teams who have made it to the semi-finals of the tournament. The hosts who just tasted defeat on one occasion find themselves placed second in the table. The Legends managed to sneak into the top four after thrashing the England side by 5 wickets in a do-or-die match and now will face the Indian Legends in the semi-final 1.
The encounter between the English side and West Indies turned out to be a virtual quarter-final as the winner of the match would go on to play the semi-final. England started out well, going to score 186 runs in their 20 overs but their bowlers could not find the right spots and a quickfire innings from Dwayne Smith and Narsingh Deonarine meant that Brain Lara and Co. sneaked their way to the top four.
The Indians on the other hand showcased a dominating performance in the group stages winning 5 out of the 6 matches with their only defeat coming against the English side by a narrow margin of 6 runs. The Indian side failed to win the battle against Sri Lanka for the top spot by a diminutive difference of net run-rate margin of 0.002.
The previous encounter between the two sides which was played prior to the forced break went in the favor of the hosts. The Indians after winning the toss elected to bowl first and restricted the Windies side to 150 runs. The Indian Openers- Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar came out all guns blazing and made easy of the target to hand India their first points of the tournament.
Can Sachin Tendulkar and Co. replicate the same performance against the Windies side on a much bigger stage? Or will it be the West Indies who manage to upset the hosts?
Match Toss Time: 18:30 Local (13:00 GMT)
Match Start Time: 19:00 Local (13:30 GMT)
Match Venue: Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium, Raipur
Weather Report
The conditions are brilliant for cricket as clear skies are expected and no chance of rain whatsoever. The temperature is forecasted to be hovering in 31-27 degrees Celsius and the humidity at the peak is likely to touch the 25 percent mark.
Pitch
The pitch has definitely eased out from what we saw in the last few matches. The teams have managed to post the totals of the range of 170-180 and out of the 16 matches played so far in the tournament we have seen the teams batting second win the match on 12 occasions. Given the success the teams have seen while chasing, the team winning the toss should be looking to bowl first and any score of the range of 170-175 is likely to be chased down.
Team News
The hosts seem to be in great touch and all the players have been making significant contributions. S. Badrinath once again played a classy knock but had to retire hurt when he was batting at 42. He is likely to be replaced by the 40-year old middle-order batsman Mohammad kaif. The rest of the team is expected to be unchanged.
West Indies have some great stroke-players in their side which includes the likes of Narsingh Deonarine and Dwayne Smith. Their skipper Brian Lara too seems to be in exemplary form. The bowling department though seems to be struggling. But the batsmen could once again come to the rescue. West Indies would be more than happy to feature the same playing Xl that won the game against England yesterday.
Probable Playing Xl
India Legends (IND-L): Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar (c), Mohammad Kaif, Yuvraj Singh, Yusuf Pathan, Irfan Pathan, Naman Ojha (wk), Manpreet Gony, Vinay Kumar, Pragyan Ojha, Munaf Patel
West Indies Legends (WI-L): William Perkins, Ridley Jacobs (wk), Dwayne Smith, Kirk Edwards, Brian Lara (c), Narsingh Deonarine, Mahendra Nagamootoo, Tino Best, Sulieman Benn, Dinanath Ramnarine, Ryan Austin
IND-L vs WI-L Fantasy Team
William Perkins, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Kirk Edwards, Narsingh Deonarine, Dwyane Smith, Yuvraj Singh, Yusuf Pathan, Vinay Kumar, Manpreet Gony, Sulieman Benn
Captain Picks: Sachin Tendulkar (IND-L), Virender Sehwag (IND-L)
Vice-captain Picks: Dwyane Smith (WI-L), Yuvraj Singh (IND-L)
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