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India vs West Indies: Lendl Simmons and Manish Pandey back in the mix

Lendl Simmons will arrive in Mumbai on Tuesday, two days prior to West Indies’ much-anticipated semi-final encounter against India.

India vs West Indies, India vs WI, WI vs Ind, India West Indies, Darren Sammy captain, Lendl Simmons, Simmons West Indies, sports news, sports, cricket news, Cricket It’s in a way a homecoming for Simmons, who played a major role as season top-scorer in Mumbai Indians’ second IPL trophy win. (Source: Reuters)

TRINIDADIAN LENDL Simmons will join the West Indies squad for the knockout stages of the World T20 as a replacement for Andre Fletcher, who injured his hamstring in Nagpur on Sunday.(STATS || POINTS TABLE || FIXTURES)

It added injury to insult for Darren Sammy’s merry men who suffered a stunning defeat at the hands of qualifiers Afghanistan.

Simmons will arrive in Mumbai on Tuesday, two days prior to West Indies’ much-anticipated semi-final encounter against hosts India in a clash of the former champions.

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Meanwhile, Manish Pandey has been called-up as a cover for Yuvraj Singh, who hurt his ankle during India’s dramatic run-chase against Australia in Mohali.

It’s in a way a homecoming for Simmons, who played a major role as season top-scorer in Mumbai Indians’ second IPL trophy win last year.

Festive offer

And it is learnt that he was anyway supposed to be arriving here soon to join his franchise as they build-up towards their title defence in IPL 9.

In some ways, both Simmons and Pandey could well have been part of their team’s original squads.

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But while the West Indian opener, who was picked initially, had to opt out to recover from a back injury, the Indian selectors chose to leave out Pandey, despite the Karnataka right-hander having scored a sensational match-winning ODI century in Sydney.

Simmons, whose uncle Phil is presently the head coach of West Indies, has been a mainstay in limited-overs cricket for the last couple of years, and he played a decent hand during last year’s 50-over World Cup.

It was in the IPL, though, that the 31-year-old really came of age, forming a lethal opening partnership for Mumbai Indians alongside Parthiv Patel.

He crossed 50 on six out of 13 innings last season and finished with 540 runs, on occasions even batting through the innings.

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While the West Indies did beat all three Test-playing nations in their group-England, Sri Lanka and South Africa-to convincingly progress into the knockouts, their middle-order hasn’t really clicked, except the form of Marlon Samuels.

The men from the Caribbean have depended largely on individual contributions from Chris Gayle and the now-injured Fletcher to see them through.

And Simmons will be a crucial addition to the mix for West Indies.

His abililty to counter spin with judicious use of feet and hit big sixes over the straight field will come in handy with India expected to depend a lot on the likes of R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja.

Get latest updates on IPL 2024 from IPL Points Table to Teams, Schedule, Most Runs and Most Wickets along with live score updates for all matches. Also get Sports news and more cricket updates.

First uploaded on: 29-03-2016 at 01:29 IST
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