ICC World Twenty20 Final Aftermath: Why Pakistan won and Sri Lanka failed

by Trevor Chesterfield

There is a promotional advert in a Colombo newspaper drawing attention to the Sri Lanka team at the ICC World T20 that has become so typical of your triumphalism mentality in today’s society.

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Frankly, it is a type of jokey metaphor. Twice in a little more than two years, Sri Lanka qualified for a final in an International Cricket Council event but ended with embarrassing defeats.

In April 2007, it was in the dysfunctionally organised World Cup in the Caribbean. Some twenty-seven months later, on the day the northern hemisphere celebrated its summer solstice with parades amid the ancient relics of Stonehenge, they lined up for the World T20 final at Lord’s against Pakistan.

Media hype being what it can be in such circumstances was decidedly strident at ghetto-blaster level. It was a massive turn off and dulled the senses; no one really sat back and evaluated either Sri Lanka or Pakistan’s performances through the super eights or semi-finals. There was a lot of pre-final bluff and bluster.

It was about a pretentious nomenclature called the ‘Dilscoop’, the new destroyer of bowling from Tillekeratne Dilshan. It was about the so-called Moratuwa Wizard Ajantha Mendis and his spin tricks, the new hero of the hour, Angelo Matthews; also the veteran master blaster Sanath Jayasuriya, the Muttiah Muralitharan magic, the fast bowling specialist Lasith Malinga and new left-arm seam and swing bowling specialist from Mars, Isuru Udana Tillakaratna. (Move aside Chaminda Vaas . . . so it is suggested). Seven very good reasons they claimed, not forgetting Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, why Sri Lanka would become world champions.

All this playing by mirrors showbiz chatter suggests how Pakistan need not worry about to turning up – Sri Lanka were ready to collect the trophy.

There is as well this shadow coach (whatever the term means), Chandika Haturasinghe, who runs the Sri Lanka A team. According to Sri Lanka Cricket officials, he has been re-classified as the batting coach and the hard word is how he will be taking over the senior squad after CWC011. He has already thrown his weight around and bumped shoulders with the amicable Sri Lanka senior assistant coach Paul Farbrace that didn’t go down too well when pre-series practice began a month ago.

When it came to the final at Lord’s, Sri Lanka didn’t change the squad. Middle-order batsman Chamara Silva, as an example, had a batting average of 9.00 from six innings eked out of what was then fifty-four runs. His seven visits to the crease realised 68 runs at 9.71. What was the (shadow) batting coach doing all this time? Counting beans?

There is the impression that Sri Lanka’s suddenly assumed the ‘invincible status’ tag came from the results of their last super eight game against a seriously weakened New Zealand side and the semi—final with the erratic West Indies. It is the reason they were seduced into thinking it was going to be easy.

How the Kiwis qualified for the super eights is a miracle, and as the disruptive injuries followed, they were reduced to a stretcher case and the results showed. West Indies blew with typical Caribbean hot and cold performances. Impressive wins over Australia and the highly farcical Duckworth/Lewis result against England at The Oval, pulled them through with marginal results in other games.

If anyone analysed Matthews three wickets in that first over against the West Indies they were all off the edge of the bat into the stumps not quality bowling.

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Mercurial Pakistan, however, after their defeat by England, seemed to have had a major indepth inquest into their ICC World T20 campaign resulting in a strategy rethink and an adjustment in how the approach the remaining games. Shahid Afridi is one of those characters who is all charade until it matters and loves to grandstand his successes. Note his two crucial wickets against South Africa in the semi-final.

If Sri Lanka thought Pakistan would not have worked out a plan or two the nullify certain areas in the final there was a serious misconception by those in charge of Sri Lankan selection policy. They picked up a hint from the Irish regarding Dilshan’s so-called magic wand stroke. He was bounced and the sucker punch resulted in a duck. Udana and Mendis were flayed and using Murali in three one-over bursts played into Afridi’s gameplan.

All of which give the impression that Sangakkara misread the situation when boasting that he had the best attack in the game. If that is so, why is Nuwan Kulasekara, who in March was the leading bowler at limited overs international (50/50 overs) level benched, as was Farveez Maharoof for the whole series?

Pakistan put together a better performance when it mattered, as there was all too often largely a question of self-belief, at one stage seemed to hang by the thread of a Taliban terrorist after Lahore 3/3. Younis Khan read the game better than did Sangakkara and used his bowling attack according to the demands of the game.

Kamaran Akmal knew how to take up the challenge and did so with careful application of sensible batting; no fancy strokes, just a prosaic approach followed by the unbroken 76 runs partnership between Afridi and Shoaib Malik exposing the Sri Lanka bowling in an embarrassing way.

There is nine months to the third edition of the ICC World T20 to be held in the West Indies. Maybe Sri Lanka will have learnt a lot more by then, including their Lord’s defeat.

Note: Prior permission has sought from the author before republication of the above article.

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