WELLING­TON–West In­dies open­ing bats­man Chris Gayle has un­der­gone scans on his in­jured back and should be ready to play in the team's World Cup quar­ter­fi­nal against New Zealand on Sat­ur­day (Fri­day 9 pm TT time), all­rounder Dar­ren Sam­my said yes­ter­day.

Gayle missed the West In­dies' fi­nal pool match against the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates on Sun­day, but Sam­my said he be­lieves Gayle will take his place in the line­up for the quar­ter­fi­nal. The in­jured bats­man has re­ceived a cor­ti­sone in­jec­tion to help with the pain.

"Chris is not miss­ing this quar­ter­fi­nal for any­body," Sam­my said. "He is more pumped up than we are. He's been writ­ing down the path for us and the dif­fer­ent sce­nar­ios."

The two-time cham­pi­on West In­dies will start as con­sid­er­able un­der­dogs in Sat­ur­day's match. New Zealand was un­beat­en in pool play, while the West In­dies had to win their fi­nal match and lift their net run rate to scrape in­to the knock­out rounds with a 3-3 record.

"It's a big oc­ca­sion but we're not go­ing to be over­whelmed," Sam­my said. "We've played New Zealand in a quar­ter­fi­nal of a T20 World Cup be­fore and when it came down to crunch time, we won. Same set of play­ers. (CMC)