New Zealand v Sri Lanka - Live!

The winner reaches the semi-finals and the loser goes home. Find out who does what with Barney Ronay from around 1pm.

In the meantime, here's some hastily-arranged scene-setter harvested from our friends at the PA wire:

New Zealand have two potential problems as they bid to book their World Twenty20 place today - highly-skilled Sri Lankan opponents and an ongoing furore over ball-tampering. The latter is largely a controversy of their own making, after they queried the state of the ball during Umar Gul's record-breaking and match-winning spell of five for six against them at The Oval on Saturday.

The only thing they can do about the former, though, is to prepare as well as possible to combat the wiles of spinners Ajantha Mendis and Muttiah Muralitharan - and the pace of Lasith Malinga and Nuwan Kulasekara. Black Caps captain Daniel Vettori did all he could yesterday to silence the mutterings over ball-tampering, insisting in a placatory press conference that New Zealand have heard and accepted the opinions of match officials that there was nothing untoward with the state of the ball against Pakistan.

As for the challenge that lies ahead, Vettori is well aware of the high stakes - and the difficulties. After a briefing from Mendis' Indian Premier League colleague Brendon McCullum - a key component of the New Zealand team, who may yet be absent today because of a finger injury - Vettori and Co are hoping they can deal with the mystery spinner. "I think set batsmen are the key to that," he said. "Where these guys are so effective is coming in against new batsmen.

"If we lose wickets to Mendis and Murali through those middle stages then new guys who haven't seen them before are going to be put under a heap of pressure. So if we can be none or one down when they come on to bowl it's going to make a massive difference."

Sri Lanka, meanwhile could go out of the competition today, despite having won every one of their previous matches. Senior batsmen Jayawardene is confident they will rise to the occasion. "You need game-plans for every five overs and create opportunities for guys to achieve," he said. "Everyone knows exactly what their job is as we go along. Everyone is now getting into the groove. We have played some really good cricket and we are very confident with the way we are going. We must continue to do the simple things - and other guys will come into the party as well."