On June 27, India will face England in their second consecutive T20 World Cup semifinal. While India lost to England by 10 wickets in Melbourne in the previous edition, the Rohit Sharma-led side will have a point to prove and take another step to end the ICC trophy drought. However, rain may play spoilsport at Providence Stadium, Guyana. In the absence of a reserve day for the second semifinal, extra four hours and 10 minutes have been allotted to complete the match if weather conditions are not ideal. But in case of a washout which is a possibility considering the weather forecast, who will progress to the final?
An unbeaten Indian side will progress to the final to be played at Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados on June 29 where they will face either Afghanistan or South Africa. India will advance as they finished on the top of their group at Super 8 stage with three consecutive wins against Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Australia respectively.
On the other hand, defending champions England will pay for botching-up the run chase against South Africa which led to them finishing second on Group 2.
Similarly, if Afghanistan’s first-ever semifinal against South Africa gets washed out, the Aiden Markram-led side will progress to the final.
Unique minimum overs rule works in India’s favour
There are different playing conditions for the second semifinal as well. While in T20Is, a minimum of five-over per side game can decide the outcome of the game, a limit of 10-overs per side has been set to ascertain the winner of the semifinal clash between India and England. If play gets abandoned with a few overs left in a 10-over game, England will feel hard done by the unique rules of the second semifinal.
Squads:
India: Rohit Sharma(c), Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant(wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Shivam Dube, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Yuzvendra Chahal, Sanju Samson, Mohammed Siraj, Yashasvi Jaiswal
England: Philip Salt, Jos Buttler(wk/c), Jonny Bairstow, Moeen Ali, Harry Brook, Liam Livingstone, Sam Curran, Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid, Mark Wood, Reece Topley, Ben Duckett, Will Jacks, Tom Hartley, Chris Jordan
MORE ON SPORTS TAK:
