Posted by We’ll be honest. Sri Lanka were steady-for-one when we got in the shower. We thought we’d timed it well. We hadn’t.
The World Twenty20 final was an odd one. Sri Lankan run-scoring was stymied and they appeared to be waiting for a particular bowler to hit. He never turned up, so Kumar Sangakkara opted to have a go at Sam One, Samuel Badree. When that failed, Sri Lanka suddenly found that they had to have a go at everyone. That failed too.
Compare that to the West Indies’ innings. They reached the frankly outrageous score of 32-2 after 10 overs, at which point Dwayne Bravo hit a six. “Oh yeah, sixes,” said Sam Two, Marlon Samuels, before wading into Lasith Malinga as if he were a particularly inviting jacuzzi.
This was where the match was won. Sri Lanka ran out of bowlers to target and imploded. West Indies also ran out of bowlers to target but somehow eviscerated the man widely considered to be the finest Twenty20 fast bowler around.
Malinga’s second over featured three sixes and went for 21 runs. In all, he conceded 54 off four overs, including 39 off the 11 balls he delivered to Marlon Samuels. Maybe the Jamaican has his bowling machine set at the wrong height or something.
It’s almost impossible to impress people as a batsman these days. The term ‘Twenty20 specialist’ is undoubtedly pejorative, but there’s also a gap on your CV if you’ve only had Test success. It appears that the second coming of Marlon Samuels transcends formats. We already liked him, but cross-format success really is to be admired.
We’ve plenty of admiration for Sam Three, as well – Darren Sammy. He’s the happiest man alive when he loses, so now that he’s captain of a World Twenty20 winning side we should probably find some way of tapping him to extract the joy. He can spare some. He can spare plenty.
I found Mahela’s sudden panic rather strange, for one so experienced. Sure, there was the threat of rain, but a) given reaching the par score at that stage was close to impossible and b) his was the most valuable wicket, his decision to self-destruct came as a surprise. He did play a shot that had earned him reward before, but his mentality suddenly changed and the DL panic contributed mightily to SL’s downfall today.
It’s not the first time Malinga has imploded. He does hold the record for worst ever economy rate in an ODI:
http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/283840.html
A good day for Sams
Sam Four!
Isn’t that waving flags and stuff?
Surely Sammy must be Sam One?
Watching mahela panic was bizarre, it wasn’t even a light drizzle, more like a mist.
Malinga was slaughtered, love your theory that Sam Twos bowling machine must be at the wrong height.