When West Indies will begin their World Twenty20 semi-final against Sri Lanka today they ought to be nostalgic at least for a while. Two years ago on a fateful evening in Colombo they met the same opponents in the 2012 WT20 final and it is known to all what happened next. The Caribbeans started the final on a wrong foot, losing a wicket before they opened the scoring that left them struggling right from the start until Marlon Samuels snatched the momentum hitting Lasith Malinga for three sixes in an over.
The rest is history as West Indies successfully defended their 137-6 to eke out a 36-run win, taking the trophy that revived the memory of the days when they had the world cricket at their feet.
The win was a fitting reward for a generation of cricketers, who had the T20 format tailor-made for them.
Most of the players, who helped the West Indies win the trophy in Colombo, have retained their place for the Bangladesh edition, giving them another hope which would make them the first side to win back-to-back WT20 titles.
India won the inaugural World Twenty20 held in South Africa in 2007, before Pakistan clinched the second tournament in England two years later. England won the third tournament, held in the Caribbean in 2010 because it was the turn of the West Indians.
‘We left the Caribbean with that motivating factor for us,’ skipper Darren Sammy said of their chances of defending the title. ‘In the last World Cup the motive was one team, one goal and the mission was to win the World Twenty20, this time it’s the same one, one team, one goal, but the mission is to retain the title.’
‘It’s something which no team has done before and we are confident that we can do that and if we play the brand of cricket we played in the last three games we can do that,’ he said.
‘But this brand of cricket is all about momentum and so far we have done that, we have a fair idea of what the opportunity would be.’
Sammy said the final of the last edition will have no implication in this game.
‘For us it’s another game of cricket, you know whenever we play the tournament against different opposition we focus on that opposition,’ he said. ‘Cricket is not about what happened before, what happens on the cricket field on that day.
‘We have a lot of respect for them and at the same time we know what we
have to do to win and we have to focus on what we want to do, and hopefully we execute our plans and improve on the areas we need to improve.
‘We have been peaking at the right time and doing good things, showing that team spirit and the never-say-die attitude and we have another good semi-final like we had in the last World Twenty20,’ said Sammy.
-With New Age input
