T20 World Cup

The New Champions Pakistan Raises The ICC T20 World Cup.

Pakistan outshine Sri Lanka in the T20 World Cup Final


It would have been heartbreak for the Pakistani supporters, present at Lord’s this Sunday, had Pakistan lost another T20 final. It would have been a big shock for all Pakistani Cricket fans worldwide. However, history did not repeat itself as Pakistan shrugged of last T20 World Cup defeat to notch up a convincing win against Sri Lanka, who had through the whole tournament not lost a single match. In fact, Sri Lanka had the better of Pakistan in a Super 8 Game in this tournament. Pakistan played the role of giant killer, as they beat South Africa in the Semifinals and then steam rolled over Sri Lanka in the Men’s T20 World Cup Final.

It has been a sort of remarkable turnaround for Pakistani cricket, after so many incidents happening in their country and cricket being banned in their soil. Pakistan thus became the only team to have beaten both Sri Lanka and South Africa in this World Cup. A remarkable achievement indeed, considering the fact that both these teams have been in prime form and played magnificent cricket, except during the crunch time when they faced Pakistan in a do or die encounter. Perhaps the moral of the story for this edition of T20 World Cup will be that, to win some you need to loose some and play well when it matters.

Winning the toss Sri Lanka opted to bat first, as they wanted to set a decent total for the Pakistani team and put them under pressure. Their tactic soon backfired as the Pakistani youngster Mohammad Aamer got the better of Dilshan in the very first over of the match. With their best batsman in the tournament gone for a duck, Sri Lanka lacked ideas to come back into the match. The change in the batting line up also backfired as Jehan Mubarak was snapped up by Abdur Razaq, ex-ICL player for the second duck of the innings.

Pakistan now had a firm control on the match. Sanath Jayasuriya, the Sri Lankan veteran with a whole lot of experience, tried to steer away Sri Lanka from this position but failed to do so after scoring just 17 runs to become Razaq’s second victim. Things got worse as Jayawardene got out in quick succession to Razaq. The only person left defending the Sri Lankan fort was their captain Kumara Sangakara. The Pakistani bowlers were unrelenting and did not loose focus in the match as Sri Lanka were left tottering at 70-6 after 13 overs.