The pitches at Guyana's Providence Stadium, just south of Georgetown, have historically had a strong bias towards spinners, offering sharp turn and low bounce. "It's been like that for a long time, as long as I can remember," Samuel Badree, two-time T20 world champion, told ESPNcricinfo.
Providence is a rare venue in T20 cricket: spinners bowl a slightly higher proportion of overs than seamers, bucking the global trend. In the last two years, spinners have conceded fewer than seven runs per over (6.96) in Guyana, while seamers have conceded 8.51. It should suit India's three spinners - Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja - while Jos Buttler is likely to use both Moeen Ali and Liam Livingstone, as well as his banker Adil Rashid.
"They were recently relaid for this T20 World Cup, but generally it has been low-scoring and favours the spinners," Badree said. "The last couple of CPLs have been more productive for the batters, so it has improved. But for this World Cup, the handful of games played down there, they favoured the spinners: low bounce, and some turn."
Guyana is an unlikely "home away from home" for the Australian spinner Chris Green, but few are better placed to assess conditions at Providence. He has played 22 CPL games there, the joint second-most of any player, and has been on the winning side in 16 of those.
Green, like Badree, has noticed a gradual improvement in the pitches. "Over the years, it's actually improved and been a higher-scoring ground in the CPL," he told ESPNcricinfo. "However, I think the day games stand out as being a bit abnormal now - probably more similar to the old-school Guyana wickets, very spin-friendly."
Thursday's semi-final will be played on Pitch 3, the central strip which has equidistant square boundaries measuring 73 metres. It has previously been used once in this tournament, for Uganda's low-scoring win against Papua New Guinea. The two teams aggregated 155 runs for the loss of 17 wickets, with low bounce a prominent feature.
The match is due to start at 10.30am, though weather forecasts suggest it may be delayed by showers in the morning. The only previous day game at Providence in this World Cup saw West Indies make hard work of chasing 137 against Papua New Guinea on a pitch with variable bounce.
With a north-easterly crosswind blowing across the ground and no dew, the ball is unlikely to come onto the bat as it might under lights. "Definitely, I'd think the day games would be more favourable to the spinners," Badree said. "Kuldeep, Axar and Adil Rashid should all come into the equation."
Green believes that batters should go hard in the powerplay, knowing that it will be the best time to bat. "Sometimes you have to over-attack the powerplay with the bat, with the field up… Naturally, that goes one of two ways, depending on the wicket, the bowling and the luck. But through the middle, it's pretty hard going.
"At the back end, if you have a platform, you can push up to an above-par total and then it's pretty tough to chase down. If you're batting second, it's much the same: try to over-attack, get ahead of the game, force the opposition to chase the game and force errors on a tough wicket. It doesn't really get easier in the daytime as the dew doesn't really come in."
Daren Ganga, the former West Indies captain, suggests that 160 could be a par score. "That pitch is going to have an even covering of root structure," he told ESPNcricinfo. "If anything, it'll have a lowish bounce: in Trinidad, you might get some steep bounce, but in Guyana, it'll be lower."
T20 World Cup stats:
Matches: 5
Average first-innings score: 146
Average runs per over: 6.20
Defending wins: 3
Chasing wins: 2
All T20I stats since July 2021:
Matches: 9 (excluding two no-results)
Average first-innings score: 151
Average runs per over: 7.18
Defending wins: 4
Chasing wins: 5