SHAR­JAH, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates – Eight years ago, the West In­dies edged out New Zealand by just six runs in a thrilling sec­ond semi­fi­nal of the 2016 T20 World Cup, book­ing their spot in the fi­nal. They went on to claim their maid­en World T20 ti­tle with a vic­to­ry over Aus­tralia.

Fast for­ward to this Fri­day, and the Windies will hope for his­to­ry to re­peat it­self as they face the Ki­wis once more in the sec­ond semi­fi­nal of the cur­rent tour­na­ment in Shar­jah.

Af­ter suf­fer­ing a heavy 10-wick­et de­feat at the hands of South Africa, the West In­dies bounced back with wins in their re­main­ing group-stage match­es against Bangladesh, Scot­land, and Eng­land, reignit­ing their cam­paign.

Cap­tain Hay­ley Matthews is hop­ing that the team can ride on that mo­men­tum and book a spot once again in the grand fi­nale.

“I think we’re proud of what we’ve been able to achieve. No one kind of had us to get to this stage, so I think we’re all pret­ty hap­py that we’ve made it here. The job’s just not fin­ished yet and we got our eyes locked on the game to­mor­row and ready for New Zealand, and hope­ful­ly ready to play a re­al­ly big game.”

New Zealand’s jour­ney to the semi­fi­nal has been far from smooth, de­spite se­cur­ing three wins in four match­es. Their on­ly loss came at the hands of Aus­tralia, but even their vic­to­ries, though com­fort­able on pa­per, tell a tale of strug­gle and near col­laps­es for the White Ferns.

“We’ve spo­ken a lot as a group that we don’t want to get too high and too low and that’s key for us is to make sure that we get back on that lev­el play­ing of emo­tions. We are just re­al­ly look­ing for­ward now to what’s go­ing to be an ex­cit­ing game to­mor­row,” said White Ferns cap­tain So­phie Devine.

De­spite New Zealand hold­ing a dom­i­nant head-to-head record of 15 wins to just five loss­es in 24 en­coun­ters, the Windies might car­ry an edge in this semi­fi­nal show­down. The spin-friend­ly tracks in Shar­jah play to their strengths, with 17 of their 20 wick­ets in the group stage falling to spin. The West In­dies will re­ly heav­i­ly on their spin­ners, with Hay­ley Matthews, Afy Fletch­er, Kar­ish­ma Ramharack, and Zai­da James lead­ing the at­tack.

For New Zealand, Amelia Kerr, who tops the bowl­ing charts along­side South Africa’s Nonku­l­uleko Mla­ba, will be piv­otal. Leigh Kasperek’s off-spin could al­so re­turn to bol­ster the Ki­wi at­tack.

Stafanie Tay­lor re­mains doubt­ful for the Windies, but the team has proven ca­pa­ble in her ab­sence. De­an­dra Dot­tin has been in fe­ro­cious form, lead­ing the tour­na­ment with six tow­er­ing six­es, twice as many as any oth­er play­er. Her pow­er-hit­ting will be cru­cial to the Windies’ chances.

New Zealand will be look­ing to Geor­gia Plim­mer, who has been in ex­cel­lent form, while Suzie Bates is due for a big per­for­mance. Much will al­so de­pend on the ex­pe­ri­enced cap­tain Devine to steady the ship.

(CMC)