ICC World Twenty20: Sri Lanka aiming for revenge against defending champions West Indies

In their bid to reach their second successive World T20 final, defending champions West Indies will be looking to put up another clinical performance when they take on a gutsy Sri Lanka, who in turn would be hoping to avenge their loss in the last edition's summit clash. (West Indies and their fear factor)

One can expect a good encounter as both teams have a lot in common going into the big semi-final clash here on Thursday. (Windies can create World T20 history: Sammy)

Both Sri Lanka and West Indies have had identical victories in their final group league encounters in which they had crushed their respective opponents for paltry scores of less than 100 runs. (Herath, the spin demon)

Both the sides boast of world class spinners, who are winning games on a consistent basis. While Rangana Herath would want to repeat his Chittagong heroics with another superlative effort against the Gayles and the Bravos, the Jayawardenes and the Sangakkaras will be equally wary of the threats that will be posed by Messrs Sunil Narine and Samuel Badree.

Sri Lanka have good memories of the Shere-e-Bangla Stadium here as they lifted the Asia Cup at this very ground not even a month ago.

As Darren Bravo rightly said, "They have played a lot more games in Bangladesh than West Indies".

But West Indies are a solid Twenty20 side which has all its bases covered despite the absence of Kieron Pollard.

Their effort has been creditable as Chris Gayle hardly had any role with the bat apart from his half-century against the Australians, which some would say was slow by his standards.

But Bravo and skipper Darren Sammy had raised their hands up whenever their team needed them the most. The duo has earned two tremendous wins against quality oppositions with their willow. If Australia match went right down to the wire, the Pakistan team simply had no clue as to what hit them in the final few overs.