Sri Lanka T20 World Champions - 2014

Sri Lanka Cricket Team

ICC World Twenty20, Game 35

Yesterday, 6:30 PM

Shere Bangla National Stadium, Dhaka

India

Sri Lanka

vs.

130/4 (20)

134/4 (17.5)

Sri Lanka won

Kumar Sangakkara and Thisara Perera celebrate after winning the ICC World Twenty20 cricket tournament final. Photograph: MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images

To the acclaim of all neutral observers and their own abundant relief, Sri Lanka became World Twenty20 champions last night. They defeated India, the favourites, with astonishing ease in a final that no one can have expected to be so straightforward.

It was an entirely fitting end to the T20 careers of Sri Lanka’s two durable stalwarts and stars, Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara, more appropriate still that Sangakkara, after a lean tournament, should lead them to glory. Last month they held a tickertape parade in Colombo after Sri Lanka won the Asia Cup – this may herald the street party of all time.