Pakistan Won Twenty20 World Cup 2009! Pakistan Rocks!

It was labeled as the clash of the titans. Pakistan versus Sri Lanka - Final match of the Twenty20 World Cup, 2009. Pakistan team made the country proud by winning the championship and putting up such a great show that they deserve a whole-hearted nation-wide celebration for such an immaculate victory. Pakistan Rocked!

Amid the cheers and joyous chanting all around me, I had decided way before today’s historic match was over that I am going to write about the victorious championship of Pakistan. With the kind of start Pakistan team had put up against Sri Lanka team, it was more than evident that the Pakistan team was out on to the savage play and determined to win the Twenty20 World Cup Championship.

Sri Lanka won the toss and decided to bat first. Pakistan came head-on on Sri Lanka by taking 2 wickets in the first two overs, which got to 4 wickets at the end of the 6th over. Aamir Shehzad picked the first wickets followed by Abdul Razzak who took 3 wickets, after which Umer Gul and Shahid AfridiShahid Afridi, both managed to take one wicket each totaling to 6 down at the end of 15 overs.

The Sri Lanka team Captain Kumar SangakkaraKumar Sangakkara kept his cool and stood his ground against the immense pressure and batted well through the match. He achieved his 50 runs of the final match on 44 balls. The last 5 overs saw a change of the winds when Sri Lanka played aggressively to make as many runs as possible to cross at least 100 runs and managed to go from 79-6 to 138-6 at the end of Sri Lanka’ innings. Sangakkara performed extremely well for the team and ended up with 64 on 52 balls. Still, 138 was not such a deadly target for Pakistan and I knew deep inside, Pakistan is going to win.

Just this morning I was reading an article written by Avijit Ghosh, ‘Why Pakistan is in T20 final’and he was referring to his article ‘Why Pakistan must win Twenty20 World Cup’ for which he received a lot of cynicism and criticism from the Indians who even labeled him unpatriotic but he knew he was talking facts and logic and this went against the emotional thought process of many patriots. His article was purely enlightening and I would quote his words on the Pakistan Captain M. Younus’ approach to the Twenty20 World Cup referred to by the author as a ‘karo ya maro’ spirit (do or die) approach. Well, the spirit was strikingly vivid during the final match.

Pakistan’s innings started with the opening batsmen Shahzaib Hasan and Kamran AkmalKamran Akmal. Pakistan needed 139 runs to win. Kamran Akmal got out by Jayasuriya on 37 runs and Shahid Afridi came for the batting to raise the score from 49 runs at the 7th over. Pakistan needed 89 runs from 74 balls to win the match. Shahzaib was caught out by Murlidharan at 23 runs on 19 balls. Lesith Malinga’s bowling was more like trying to hit the batsman than the bat or the wicket but the Pakistan batsmen put up a good defense against the ferocious bowler.

Sri Lanka made a comeback in Pakistan’s innings by giving extremely tough time to Pakistani batsmen. Shahid Afridi was targeted by both Malinga and Murlidharan and it sure was difficult to make runs. But Boom Boom’s surprising sixes on just the right time made sure the run rate was kept steady for the win. Pakistan embraced a momentous victory over Sri Lanka by 8 wickets. The Twenty20 World Cup 2009 was victoriously owned by Paksitan. Boom Boom Afridi was declared Man of the Match.

Jeevay Jeevay Pakistan! Pakistan Zindabad! Our team made us proud. The whole nation is proud of our fabulous cricket team!