Sri Lanka finally got a taste of winning an ICC trophy last night when they beat India comprehensively by 6 wickets with 13 balls remaining. It was dream come true for the Sri Lankans after they had failed to come out on top on numerous occasions since 2007. Also it was the last T20 international match for Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardena and they got just got what they wanted- a World Cup trophy.
Coming in to the match, it can be said that everything fell in place for the Lankans last night. Right from winning the toss, then bowling first and restricting India within a small total, till the last hit by Thisara Perrera, everything was going in their way. They had a great start with the ball as they got the wicket of Ajinkya Rahane in the second over of the match. After that India tried to make a comeback into the thick of actions riding on the partnership by Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. But once Rohit Sharma went out Sri Lanka slowly began to seize control of the match. Taking nothing away from the Lankan bowlers it can be said that Yuvraj Singh’s selfish kind of innings cost India the match. At one end when Virat Kohli was slowly getting back his timing on the ball, Yuvraj Singh was struggling to hit the ball. As a result India could not even rotate the strike which is a so very important part in the T20s and Virat Kohli was left stranded at the other end. Yuvi made just 11 consuming as many as 21 balls- an innings which can be regarded as suicidal in this format. Kohli managed to face just 8 balls in the last 4 overs as India scored only 19 from those overs. At the end of innings the frustrated expression of Kohli (77 of 42) said it all-India was at least 20-25 runs short of what would have been a challenging total.
Indian fans still kept their hope as India’s bowling has come to party for number of times. Even they successfully defended just 120-odd runs in the Champions Trophy final to win the trophy. But it was not there to be won by the Men in Blue. Nothing could have prevented the Lankans from lifting the trophy and giving their talismanic duo a befitting farewell. It could be felt on the ground- Sri Lanka lost wickets at regular intervals but was never out of contention; top edges flew over the keeper’s head for boundaries; inside edges missed the stumps by fraction and lot more. On any other day these incidents could have gone the other way but not last night. Sri Lanka chased down India’s total of 130-4 with 13 balls remaining and once Thisara Perrera hit the winning runs emotions began to take over the Mirpur stadium in Bangladesh as it was the final time when the world could watch Mahela and Sanga in Lankan outfit in T20s.
However India managed to get hold of one trophy- the man-of-the-tournament trophy as it could not have been anyone other than Virat Kohli. This guy was just sensational throughout the tournament scoring 319 runs with an average of more than 100 and when 30 is regarded as a respectable score in T20s, this man got 4 50s in the tournament. That tells his dominance in the tournament. But unfortunately he turned out to be the tragic hero in the end. Also this tournament saw a national hero getting transformed into a national villain- Yuvi the hero in 2011 became Yuvi the villain in 2014- just in 3 years and few days. Time really flies away.
Tags: Sri Lanka Sri Lanka wins T20 World Cup Sri Lanka wins World Cup
