ICC World T20: Caribbeans beat India in semis, to face England in finals
Hosts fail to defend near-200 total as Windies batsmen make mockery of chase.
Mumbai: The West Indies skipper Darren Sammy had often spoken about 15 match winners in their squad but on Thursday it was turn of 16th man Lendl Simmons who saw them through to the final of the ICC World Twenty20.
The Mumbai Indians player, Simmons who arrived late as Andre Fletcher’s replacement made most of three lives to make an immediate impact with unbeaten 82 in 51 balls.
He was lucky to get three lifelines and hit seven boundaries and five sixes as The Windies won by seven wickets while chasing India’s 192/2 in the second semi-final here at Wankhede stadium.
He kept the hopes alive with 97-run partnership for the third wicket with Johnson Charles 52 (36b, 7x4, 2x6) after Chris Gayle (5) was bowled by a Jasprit Bumrah (1/42) beauty and Marlon Samuels (8) got a leading edge off Ashish Nehra (1/25).
Simmons later stayed till the end with Andre Russell 43 (20, 3x4, 4x6) to see off the chase with two balls to spare. Simmons and Russell put together undefeated 80 runs in 40 deliveries.
Ravichandran Ashwin and Hardik Pandya thought they had Simmons on separate occasions but the ball was ruled no-ball. Simmons had the last laugh when he hit Bumrah over mid-wicket and Ravindra Jadeja held it outside to lob it back to Virat Kohli who caught it but Jadeja had touched the boundary line and Simmons was called for the third time back.
Earlier, Virat Kohli rode on his luck to unleash his destructive side again with 47-ball 89. The Delhi dasher struck eleven fours and a lone six to give India their best score of the tournament.
He was involved in 66-run second wicket partnership with Ajinkya Rahane 40 (35b, 2x4) before finishing in style with 64-run undefeated partnership with M.S. Dhoni in 27 balls.
He was as usual masterly in piercing the gaps, running the twos hard and finding the boundaries will at the end of innings. The last four overs produced 59 runs as Kohli dispatched the bowlers to all parts of the park. India dropped Shikhar Dhawan to give local boy Rahane a go and he didn’t disappoint, scoring a plucky 40.