LONDON: Marking one of the greatest days in Pakistan cricketing history, the Green Brigade made the amends to their heart-breaking loss in the final against India in the last edition by bowling aggressively and batting with supreme calm to seal a convincing eight-wicket win over Sri Lanka in the final of the ICC World Twenty20 at Lord’s on Sunday.
Shahid Afridi’s finely judged 54, saw them home with eight balls to spare after three wickets from Abdul Razzaq had limited Sri Lanka to 138 from their 20 overs.
The victory will certainly serve as a healing balm to the Pakistan cricket, which has been effectively been evicted from playing cricket in their homeland because of the political instability in the region.
Sri Lanka, who had progressed through the tournament, winning all their matches till now failed at the last hurdle.
Afridi smashed a huge six off the penultimate ball of the 18th over and took just four balls of the 19th to reach the required total for victory. Afridi’s big-match temperament came to the fore as he along with Shoaib Malik stitched a match-winning partnership of 76 runs to ensure that Pakistan overhaul the target of 138 runs without any hiccups.
The Pathan smashed a scintillating half-century as Malik complimented him with some great running between the wickets.
There are few chosen ones who get another opportunity to make amends and this time it was Afridi who was chosen. After their loss in the final in the inaugural season, Afridi’s effigies were burnt all over Pakistan for not playing responsibly. But destiny gave him another opportunity and Afridi seized it with awesome display of temperament.
Afridi was playing a patient innings, clearly under instructions not to do anything silly, and although he looked to open his shoulders with a big six off the first ball of the 14th over he was well in control.
By this point the odds were heavily stacked in Pakistan's favour, with only a batting collapse likely to salvage anything from the match for Sri Lanka.
Kamran Akmal started the chase aggressively hitting Angelo Matthews for a boundary in the first over. But Udana and Malinga stifled the opening batsmen for runs in the next two overs.
In a bid to accelerate, Shahzaib tried to clear the in-field and ended up given an opportunity to make early in-roads. However, Mathews superb effort went in vain as the ball fell short of him. In the sixth over Sangakkara introduced his trump card Ajantha Mendis and the Pakistanis decided to counter with Akmal taking the onus and scoring a six off him.
The opening partnership started to look threatening as Akmal continued in the same vein and backed himself to smash another six off Mathews.
The Man with the golden-arm Sanath Jayasuriya did the trick for the Lankans as he got an over-aggressive Akmal stumped off his very first ball. Kamran Akmal scored 37 runs off 28 deliveries which included two huge sixes. Kamran Akmal and Shahzaib Hasan put up 48 runs for the first-wicket partnership.
After being beaten off first two deliveries off Ajantha Mendis in the eighth over, Shahzaib hit back to back boundaries to keep the momentum going. Sangakkara called Muralitharan back into the attack and the ploy worked well as Shahzaib top-edged the off-spinner to Jayasuriya at short fine-leg. Pakistan scored 65/2 after 10 overs.
Earlier, Sangakkara batted with a mix of caution and aggression but in a display of his true class he completed his 50 off 44 balls in the 17th over as Sri Lanka went past 100-run mark.
The ‘Dilscoop’ which brought so many allocates for Tillakaratne Dilshan eventually did him in when it mattered the most. The highest scorer of the tournament perished while trying to scoop the ball straight into the hands of Shahzaib off Mohammad Aamer.
The second wicket fell soon when Jehan Mubarak, who was promoted up the order, tried to go over the top only to top-edge Abdul Razzaq and failed to clear the circle.
The skipper arrived when the Lankans were struggling on 2-2 and played a drive on the up off Aamer to keep the score board ticking.
Old war-horse Sanath Jayasuriya then came into the act and the victim was Abdul Razzaq. Jayasuriya hit him for a huge six and then smashed a boundary through the backward point region.
But it was Razzaq who had the last laugh when he got Jayasuriya’s inside edge crashing into the stumps. Razzaq fell off balance but got up in a second to celebrate the dismissal of the big fish.
With Sri Lanka reeling at 26-3 after four overs, Mahela Jayawardene joined Sangakkara at the centre to do the repair work. The former Sri Lankan skipper didn’t last long and fell to a Razzaq out-swinger by edging it straight to Misbah ul-Haq who was guarding the first slip.
Razzaq knew that Jayawardene was vulnerable to deliveries outside the off-stump and he got the better off him with tried and tested strategy.
Younis Khan introduced Shahid Afridi in the 7th over to tighten the noose. Chamara Silva who joined the skipper concentrated on the singles and the duo gathered five off the over.
Silva finally break lose in the next over when he opened the face of the bat to Ajmal and collected four runs in the third man region. But Silva kept on living dangerously while facing Shahid Afridi.
Silva swept and swept hard to bisect the fielders and got the much needed boundary off Shoaib Malik. The Lankans were 54-4 at the end of 10 overs.
Sangakkara finally broke the shackles by hitting back-to-back fours in Shahid Afridi’s third over.
The Pakistan skipper then introduced his best bowler of this format- Umar Gul in the 12th over. And the decision paid dividends immediately as he forced Silva to mistime a pull straight into the hands of Ajmal.
Both the teams have relied heavily on their bowling attack and Pakistani bowlers did their bit by extracting the juice from the pitch offered to them at Lord’s.
The star with the ball for Pakistan in the semi-final – Shahid Afridi cleaned up Isuru Udana who was sent up the order to give company to his skipper. Udana scored just a run as Sangakkara kept watching his batsmen take the long walk back to the pavilion one after the other.
The Lankan captain was content with taking singles as Sri Lanka reached 79-6 after 15 overs.
However, the best shot of the innings came from Angelo Mathews when he played a straight drive off Ajmal to compliment Sangakkara’s boundary two balls earlier. The duo added 68 runs off 42 balls for the seventh wicket as Sri Lanka posted a challenging total of 138 runs.
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