Winning world events is an ugly business. Even aspiring to win is.
Ask Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara. Before tonight they had reached finals four times, wanting to win, ending up with bigger heartbreaks.
On a night that these two champion players finally got that monkey off their backs–in their last Twenty20 international match–another champion player played a poignant, cagey innings that cost his side the final. Yuvraj Singh, India's limited-overs talisman for so long, came in at 64 for 2 in the 11th over, scored 11 off 21, denied the unstoppable Virat Kohli the strike, and that spell of play resulted in the lowest target in a World Twenty20 final and the second-lowest score for the loss of only four wickets.
Title matches consume the vanquished. This final may have put down one of the all-time limited-overs greats, but just ask Jayawardene and Sangakkara, the redemption didn't come easy. India defended the small total admirably, preying on the Sri Lankan nerves, fielding everything down, spinning a web around the batsmen, but the two champions somehow had enough in them to put their side over the line.
Under palpable pressure, against a shrewd limited-overs captain, Jayawardene settled the early nerves with a run-a-ball 24, and Sangakkara saw the chase through with an ice-cool unbeaten 52 off 35.
Big finals are a cruel business, though, and history will remember Yuvraj's knock as much as it will Sangakkara's.
He has won India matches from nowhere on innumerable occasions, he has buried sides with his cameos, he has turned around games in ten balls, which is why he was still part of the team in the final.
MS Dhoni had trusted his match-winner, he sent him in ahead of Suresh Raina and himself. Kohli, now the leading run-scorer in any World Twenty20, had just begun to put behind him a slow start against disciplined Sri Lankan bowling. He had even been dropped by opposition captain Lasith Malinga on 11. He was in a mood to make
them pay.
Sri Lanka, though, kept their wits, and gave Yuvraj nothing to score off. That too after Kohli had laced the otherwise frugal Nuwan Kulasekara for six, four and six in the 16th over to make it 111 for 2.
That over featured another slip in the fielding when the fielder at cow corner was lobbed after misjudging a catch. Normally you would expect teams to fall apart at these times, but Sri Lanka produced four superb overs.
Yuvraj faced two dots from Sachithra Senanayake, who gave him no pace or room to work with.
Malinga bowled the next over, and was happy with a single to Kohli first ball. Then came a yorker outside off. The dugout began to become edgy by now.
They badly needed Yuvraj to come off now, and make up for 9 off 17 that it had become by now. You can't even begin to imagine what it would have been like being Kohli there, the best batsman of the tournament, but now without the strike to make the difference. When Kohli got the strike fourth ball, Malinga again produced a low wide one that he couldn't get under, and went on to ball another dot to Yuvraj before the over ended.
That dot was a yorker wide outside off, which went past very near Yuvraj's outside edge, and that Sangakkara didn't appeal loudly for it said all you needed to know about Yuvraj's innings.
When Yuvraj finally hit a full toss down the throat of long-off, you felt a little sad for the batsman who could have put these in the stands blindfolded and with one arm tied behind his back.
This time, though, Sri Lanka's plan had come off, bowling full and wide, just inside the tram lines, stifling India. Kohli and Dhoni tried their best, but were second-best to the execution by Malinga and Kulasekara.
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