T20 World Cup Final 2012: Sri Lanka vs West Indies

First topic message reminder :

Sunday, October 7, 2012
R. Premadasa Stadium, Colombo

Start time: 1900 (local) 1330 GMT

Sri Lanka:
1 Tillakaratne Dilshan, 2 Mahela Jayawardene*, 3 Kumar Sangakkara†, 4 Lahiru Thirimanne, 5 Jeevan Mendis, 6 Angelo Mathews,
7 Thisara Perera, 8 Nuwan Kulasekara, 9 Lasith Malinga, 10 Ajantha Mendis, 11 Rangana Herath/Akila Dananjaya

West Indies:
1 Chris Gayle, 2 Johnson Charles, 3 Marlon Samuels, 4 Dwayne Bravo, 5 Kieron Pollard, 6 Darren Sammy*,
7 Andre Russell, 8 Denesh Ramdin†, 9 Sunil Narine, 10 Ravi Rampaul, 11 Samuel Badree

Last T20 World Cup Thread: https://www.606v2.com/t35392-t20-world-cup-live-matches-discussion

Nothing to do with the West Indies bowling and fielding extremely well then AWOP?

No EB, all just about bureaucrats and the endless political circus that is international cricket.

Look, there's a very angry point I can make here about something. Let's just wait for this gripping conclusion to the fantastic tournament to come to an end and I'll figure out which angle I'll take...

I cant wait to read it AWOP

Good over now for Sri Lanka, may not be over yet

See, if only I'd had Chris Gayle to come and lay a hand on my shoulder and tell me to calm down like that before that first post I would never have shot off like that.

Everyone needs a Chris Gayle. Fantastic bit of capataincy that.

8 down now, it was starting to turn around for Sri Lanka but now it really must be over.

What's with the orange ribbon Samuels is wearing around his neck?

SAMUELS - Man of the Match, Man of the Series, Man of the Year

What an effort by the Windies, really just so happy for them

100-9, I really didn't see it coming at 48-1. Can the Slinger produce some magic with the bat today? He was awful with the ball.

Over, well done West Indies

Wow.

Congrats windies.

Sl smashed at home in the final.

The big men for the ipl pulled it off.

msp83 wrote:100-9, I really didn't see it coming at 48-1. Can the Slinger produce some magic with the bat today? He was awful with the ball.

Nope, they smashed him out of this game and he went very quiet. Papa slingo could do nothing.

What a performance from Marlon Samuels. 78 of 56 with 6 6s on a track where everyone else, including Chris Gayle struggled, and then 1 for 15 in his 4 overs.

Yes, West Indies have done it!!!.

I had said on the preview thread that the WI are in the running for the title. After the group stages I became hopeful rather than assured. But they indeed have done it!. Marlon Samuels is the deserving hero of the day, but its Gayle who made a world of difference to this outfit.

Well, I called that completely wrongly. I thought pre match that the West Indies' chances were slim and that any hopes would largely rest on Gayle.

Anyway, pleased for them and their captain Darren Sammy, a decent man who has not deserved some of the things said about him in the past. Hopefully, this will generate further interest and investment in West Indian cricket. Many congratulations!

Well, I'm afraid that was for me a fairly disappointing final to end a fairly poor tournament standards-wise. The women's match earlier was far more interesting. The pitch simply got more and more tired, and wasn't condusive at all to stroke-playing by the end.

Sri Lanka are doing their best to emulate South Africa it seems. They got their tactics wrong here, too timid with the bat at the start of their innings and poor bowling by Malinga and Kulasekara, too many yorkers and not enough cutters on that pitch.

Samuels played a terrific innings, but the rest of the cricket... meh.

Anyway congratulations must go to the West Indies, who I had as amongst the dark horses before the tournament started. Hopefully Sammy will get a bit of credit for the win today, making crucial contributions with bat and ball and also getting his captaincy pretty much spot on.

But I'm afraid for me this tournament hasn't really had any spark.

When Kulasekara was teeing off on Rampaul (whose brain cells seemed to be momentarily absent in that over), deep within the recesses of my battered West Indian fan's psyche, I felt an unshakeable sense of foreboding. Could the West Indies snatch defeat from the jaws of victory yet again?

Happily for me, for once, the guys in maroon held their nerve and won the title.

Well done to the Windies!

Well done West Indies, the batting recovered from the horrific start and the bowling was fantastic. Deserved champions.

Well done to West Indies. They held their nerve in the key matches when others didn't.

I don't think they performed outstandingly other than in the semi-final, but then nobody made a fully compelling case for the title.

I am stunned by Marlon Samuels' recent run of form. Until England he'd looked distinctly average since his comeback - often scratching around in Tests, and not necessarily being first choice in one-dayers. But he's been top class lately

I'd like to say a bit about the role of Darren Sammy. His captaincy has coincided with an evident improvement in the spirits and skill levels of the team across all three formats, even if results didn't really start to flow until the last few months. I don't think that is entirely a coincidence. He's a committed man who gives his all, and allows his more illustrious teammates to flourish in a way they didn't feel able to under previous skippers. In time his place in the Test side may come under further scrutiny (not now, but if the results pick up further and some seamers with very strong cases for selection come through, then it might be time to move on), but he's a much better one-day player than people give him credit for.

Darren Sammy is the first captain since Brian Lara to win an ICC trophy for the West Indies. Today he played his part with bat and ball in the win. Credit has to be due where it is.
But at the same time I would repeat a point I have been making for a long time, that the WI players responded to Gayle's captaincy very well, and other than that one controversial tour of England, his captaincy was acknowledged to be pretty good. And Gayle's Reintegration? to the team has helped big time in terms of the results.

Congrats to the windies.

I must add that I did lose hope after Gayle got out.

But the team showed fight and gumption.

A well deserved win and this should be a good impetus for Windies cricket.

Well done guys. First world cup since 1979, long overdue and this should give the long suffering windies fan something to cheer about.

msp83 wrote:
But at the same time I would repeat a point I have been making for a long time, that the WI players responded to Gayle's captaincy very well, and other than that one controversial tour of England, his captaincy was acknowledged to be pretty good.

I still felt under Gayle that there was something missing. The game seemed to drift for long periods, and nobody seemed to care much about sorting it out. After Jamaica the series v England at home consisted of being tonked around for 600 every time they ran up to bowl, and they also lost heavily to England (away - when Gayle turned up late) and SA at home, in a series in which they made no impression at all. Correct me if I'm wrong but the win at Jamaica is the only real success I can think of under Gayle (come to think of it didn't they win at Port Elizabeth, when he was stand is captain, but still, its hardly an exhaustive list).

These days we get near total commitment. They have a long way to go in Tests (though maybe not as far as some might imagine) and I think that Sammy has a key role to play in getting them there - to a position where they can seriously enter Tests v the best teams expecting to win.

I'm not sure reference to 2004 is that relevant either. That was a poor West Indies team who beat a similarly poor England team in the final of a grim tournament played out of season, and which nobody was that interested in. This is the first time the team has been on an upward curve since the early 90s - the team of the early 2000s was still slightly better than this one but they were always in decline.

Under Gayle they won an ODI series against England and as you said he captained them to their most recent test win against South Africa. The tour to Australia saw the WI offering a pretty good fight as well. And if I remember correctly, it wasn't just the WI attack that regularly gave away big totals in that 2009 series.
Duncan Fletcher felt that England's win over Australia in the 2004 tournament was what gave them belief that they could beat the Australians. That team had Trescothick, Flintoff during his peack years....... Sure that title didn't make any major positive sustainable changes in WI cricket but it sure was an important moment.

Meanwhile Mahela Jayawardene has resigned as Sri Lanka's T-20I captain. He would continue to lead the side in the other 2 formats at least until the Australia tour early next year.
Angelo Mathews is most likely to take over from Mahela.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/srilanka/content/current/story/585968.html

if Matthews' brain is the same when captaining as it was when batting today I'm not sure that would be such a good idea

well done WI

but on the whole I agree with Mike, the general level of play throughout the tournament has been below par for me: maybe it's the lack of innovations (T20 seems to be very much the format where these first arrive, but there haven't been any this tournament) which has made the cricket seem a bit formulaic at times.

SL made an absolute hash of that run chase: on a tiring pitch, chasing a tricky-ish total in the final, surely the smart move would have been to keep the RRR manageable (under 8 runs per over) rather than seem so intent on keeping wickets in hand to then lose them all in a madcap rush to try to rein back in that RRR. All a bit brainless.

I didn't see WI's innings, but it seems like an excellent knock from Samuels and a decent cameo from Sammy. Russell didn't bowl, again. Playing basically as a specialist fielder.

Mad for Chelsea wrote:Russell didn't bowl, again. Playing basically as a specialist fielder.

Not a very good one either. Dropped a (tough) catch.

On a more positive note, I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate Simon Taufel on his excellent career, and wish him all the best in his future endeavours.

Taufel's calling it a day and that has to be his call, but nobody will be asking why not? He has been an absolutely excellent umpire, and unlike some of the others he hasn't overstayed one bit. Would have really liked him to continued for a few more years, but now that the call has been made, I just wish him all the best in the future.