Vin­ode Mam­chan

The West In­dies crick­eters had a day to re­flect on their em­bar­rass­ing loss to Afghanistan in their fi­nal ICC World T20 pre­lim­i­nary round match, as they ar­rived in Mum­bai yes­ter­day evening from Nag­pur.

Need­ing to get 124 runs for vic­to­ry, the West In­dies were re­strict­ed to 118/8 off their 20 overs - los­ing the game by six runs. How­ev­er, they still topped the group stand­ings and will play hosts In­dia in a tough se­mi-fi­nal clash on Thurs­day in Mum­bai.

The West In­dies were dealt a fur­ther blow when num­ber three bats­man An­dre Fletch­er in­jured his ham­string and was forced to miss the re­main­der of the tour­na­ment. Fletch­er was man of the match in the sec­ond game against Sri Lan­ka and made 10 not out against Afghanistan af­ter re­tir­ing ear­li­er on.

His re­place­ment, Lendl Sim­mons who ini­tial­ly with­drew from the team cit­ing back prob­lems, has re­cov­ered suf­fi­cient­ly and will take his place on the squad. He was ex­pect­ed to ar­rive last night and is un­like­ly to take part in to­day's prac­tice ses­sion at the CCI ground.

His un­cle, coach Phil Sim­mons, will hope that the ag­gres­sive right han­der is able to train to­mor­row the Wankhede Sta­di­um in Mum­bai, the match venue. Lendl will be fa­mil­iar with the con­di­tions at the Wankhede as he plays for the Mum­bai In­di­ans in the In­di­an Pre­mier League (IPL).

De­spite Sun­day's loss, de­scribed by cap­tain Dar­ren Sam­my as a 'blip', the mood in the camp re­mained up­beat yes­ter­day as the team en­tered the en­ter­tain­ment cap­i­tal of In­dia. The play­ers seemed in good spir­its and are look­ing for­ward to two good per­for­mances in or­der to lift their sec­ond World T20 ti­tle.

The last time they played here, they had the full sup­port of the fans, but on Thurs­day a sold out venue is ex­pect­ed to be cheer­ing for the home team.

The In­di­ans ar­rived in mid-af­ter­noon and all rounder Yu­vraj Singh was whisked away to have an MRI scan done on his an­kle. The big left han­der took off bad­ly for a sin­gle against Aus­tralia in Sun­day's win and dam­aged his an­kle. Med­ical staff is work­ing fever­ish­ly on him with the hope that he is ful­ly fit for Thurs­day.

The Board of Con­trol for Crick­et in In­dia (BC­CI) is tak­ing no chances and has called up Man­ish Pandey as cov­er for the all rounder. Even if Yu­vraj is un­fit to play, Pandey may miss out as Ajinkya Ra­hane who has car­ried drinks so far in the tour­na­ment may be the man re­plac­ing him.

The West In­dies women's team al­so ar­rived in the City from Mo­hali and they will con­tin­ue their prepa­ra­tions to­day, as they look to de­feat New Zealand in their se­mi-fi­nals on Thurs­day at the same venue.

The women's team clipped In­dia by three runs on Sun­day at Mo­hali and will face a tough New Zealand team–which has been dom­i­nant in women's crick­et.