Cool head of Sammy can see West Indies into the semis

 It’s a winner takes all clash as Pakistan and West Indies face-off for a place in the World Twenty20 semi finals.

And with the sides evenly matched Ladbrokes cannot separate them in the betting with both teams 10/11 for victory in Mirpur.

Both teams have enjoyed similar campaigns up until now after losing to India in their opening matches and recovering with wins over Australia and Bangladesh.

And with the slow nature of the pitches used in Group B, Sunil Narine for the Windies and Pakistan’s Saeed Ajmal will be the dangermen with the ball.

Ajmal ,who is the leading wicket-taker in T20 internationals, is 9/1 with the bookmaker to put in a man-of-the-match performance with the ball, while Narine, who has an impressive 33 wickets from just 27 matches, is 10/1 to be named as the player of the game.

Throw in the likes of Samuel Badree, Marlon Samuels, Shahid Afridi and Mohammad Hafeez and both sides have a full complement of spinning options heading into this must win clash and the batting of both sides will be put to the test.

With the likes of Chris Gayle, Dwayne Smith, Dwayne Bravo and the finisher Darren Sammy all in decent touch for the West Indies, they look to have the edge with bat in hand.

And in Sammy they have the coolest head in international cricket as his heroics against Australia proved.

The Saint Lucian all-rounder produced a captain’s knock of 34 not out off just 13 balls as he got his side over the line in the last over and put in that same position again against Pakistan, it would be difficult to back against him producing the goods yet again.

Sammy is 16/1 with the bookie to be named man-of-the-match but in Ahmed Shehzad, Umar Akmal and Afridi, Pakistan have match winners of their own with the bat.

In particular, Shehzad has been firing on all cylinders so far during this tournament and his unbeaten 111 of 62 balls against Bangladesh is one of the standout innings of the tournament so far.

The 22-year-old is 3/1 to follow up that knock with another 50 and he is 4/1 to finish top runscorer in the match with a +3 handicap in a field including the likes of K Akmal (+7 – 4/1), Hafeez (+5 – 4/1), Gayle (+0 – 4/1), Smith (+5 -4/1) and Simmons (+6 – 4/1).

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.

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