When 'Hope' Finally Became A Reality
After sharing sorrows as the losing side in four straight World Cup finals, Sri Lanka became the T20 World Cup winners on this day in 2014 at the Sher-E-Bangla Stadium.
What does 'Hope' mean? Is it the anticipation of an outcome you wish it goes in favour of you, or the belief that you have what it takes to change that outcome? After losing four World Cup finals in a row, Sri Lanka finally broke that hoodoo with a win against India at the 2014 T20 World Cup in Dhaka...
On this day in 2014, somewhere around this time on a night like while the writer types, fans of Sri Lankan Cricket including the writer himself sat in front of their TVs with snacks, drinks, family and friends to witness the T20 World Cup final without knowing that in this World Cup final, the outcome would be different.
With fresh yet bittersweet memories from the defeats in 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2012, fans of all ages would not have dreamed to witness a win, finally, and that too against the team they lost the World Cup in 2011 in the most spectacular fashion. Sri Lanka hadn't held onto a trophy since the 1996 World Cup win. The team in that short span of 8 years and the fans only went from heartbreak to heartbreak, but there was some 'hope' in the end. And it started from the bowling.
There is a popular saying in cricket that "batters can win you games but bowlers win you tournaments." That's exactly what skipper Lasith Malinga, Nuwan Kulasekara and Sachithra Senanayake did from the 17th over onwards, giving away just 19 runs. The surgical precision to land that many Yorkers to dismiss the struggling Yuvraj Singh and refusing to let Kohli or MS Dhoni score any boundary was beyond remarkable as one of the best death bowling performances of all time in this format.
Sri Lanka in the end only need to chase a modest target of 131. With high hopes once again, one would have expected this to be a cakewalk but with both the openers gone, fans still hung onto hope. It was Mahela and Sanga who carried the ship for one last time in the T20 format, the former scoring only 24 runs but becoming the first batter to score 1000 runs in T20 World Cups.
Kumar Sangakkara, the losing captain of 2011 and a batter who was struggling to find his form in the tournament, rose to the occasion to score an unbeaten 52 and the young Thisara Perera with 2 mighty heaves off Amit Mishra and a final blow against Ravichandran Ashwin, jumped in jubilation like everyone at the stadium and those watching from home.
"Now has he got it? Yes he has! Sri Lanka the new champions of the ICC T20 World Cup. Well played. They tried so hard so many times in the finals. This is their day just watch the celebration. One of the greatest of the game Kumar Sangakkara finally gets his opportunity under the lights here at Mirpur Dhaka."
These words by Harsha Bhogle made the night colourful as Sri Lanka finally won a World Cup after so many heartbreaking defeats in the finals. And we come back to the question once again, what is 'Hope?' We'd like to hear your thoughts on what it meant to be hopeful on the night of this incredible finals!