Vin­ode Mam­chan

West In­dies cap­tain Dar­ren Sam­my has ad­mit­ted that his team is seen as un­der­dogs go­ing in­to to­day's ICC World T20 se­mi-fi­nal against favourites and host In­dia at the Wankhede sta­di­um in Mum­bai, but says an up­set is on the cards.

As In­dia's en­ter­tain­ment cap­i­tal grinds to a halt tonight, Sam­my will walk out to do the toss against In­dia's de­mi-God Ma­hen­dra Singh Dhoni at 7.30pm (10:00 am TT time). The St. Lu­cian knows that he is up against it, but was quick to re­mind the me­dia who won the bat­tle then. He said: "I think the peo­ple who mea­sures these things has giv­en In­dia an 80-20 per­cent chance of win­ning the match. It feels like David and Go­liath, but peo­ple for­get that Go­liath won the bat­tle.

We have a lot of re­spect for In­dia, as many of our play­ers play here in the IPL and we have a good ca­ma­raderie with the In­di­an play­ers. It should be a great game and where else is bet­ter than Mum­bai which has the best pitch in In­dia."

Sam­my con­tin­ued: "As I al­ways say no mat­ter what peo­ple think, once we be­lieve in our­selves and I think as a group we be­lieve in our­selves, we will do well. We be­lieve in the tal­ent we have. Crick­et is played on the pitch we can talk how much we want. I can talk a good game, but the crick­et has to take place on the pitch."

Sam­my is fond of the Mum­bai pitch, but says his team is just ready to play on any sur­face. "To be hon­est, I just want 22 yards long and six feet wide and that is a good crick­et pitch. What­ev­er is giv­en we are ready to play crick­et."

Chair­man of se­lec­tors, the leg­endary Clive Lloyd is in In­dia with the team and has been very ac­tive in terms of men­tor­ing and Sam­my thinks he can bring an edge go­ing in­to this cru­cial clash. "It has been good hav­ing a man like Clive Lloyd in the dress­ing room. He speaks when he see it fit and I re­mem­ber he said some good en­cour­ag­ing words which the guys took with them to the field, dur­ing our ti­tle win in 2012. Tonight, I will pick his brains again and see where I can im­prove lead­ing in­to the game."

Sam­my made no se­cret about the com­po­si­tion of his point­ing out that the West In­dies team is packed with match win­ners, just as the In­di­ans and once they fire, the West In­dies will reach the fi­nals. "You have two sides and when it comes to ex­pe­ri­ence the two teams are well stacked. We have a lot of ex­pe­ri­ence with our play­ers play­ing all over the world and the In­di­ans have played many match­es in the IPL.

"When you have this at your dis­pos­al, it is im­por­tant to al­so have the tac­ti­cal aware­ness to go with it. What you have in the dress­ing room in terms of (Chris) Gayle, Dwayne Bra­vo, Samuel Badree and oth­ers are great, but you need to have that tac­ti­cal aware­ness to lead in­to vic­to­ry."

The West In­dies fi­nalised their prepa­ra­tions at the Wankhede yes­ter­day and they are ex­pect­ed to make a forced change with Lendl Sim­mons com­ing in for the in­jured An­dre Fletch­er.

The In­di­ans were al­so at the same venue and news com­ing out of their dress­ing room was that Yu­vraj Singh is now of­fi­cial­ly out and he has been re­placed by Man­ish Pandey.

Teams

West In­dies: Dar­ren Sam­my (Cap­tain), Samuel Badree, Sulie­man Benn, Car­los Brath­waite, Dwayne Bra­vo, John­son Charles, Chris Gayle, Ja­son Hold­er, Evin Lewis, Ash­ley Nurse, De­nesh Ramdin, An­dre Rus­sell, Mar­lon Samuels, Lendl Sim­mons and Jerome Tay­lor.

In­dia: Ma­hen­dra Singh Dhoni (cap­tain), Ravichan­dran Ash­win, Jasprit Bum­rah, Shikhar Dhawan, Harb­ha­jan Singh, Ravin­dra Jade­ja, Vi­rat Kohli, Mo­hammed Sha­mi, Pawan Ne­gi, Ashish Nehra, Hardik Pandya, Ajinkya Ra­hane, Suresh Raina, Ro­hit Shar­ma and Man­ish Pandey.