World T20 champs were determined not to lose their 3rd match to SL in the event
“It is hard to explain what this victory means to me and my team,” said top-scorer Marlon Samuels, as the West Indies celebrated wildly with energetic ‘Gangnam Style’ dancing after the Caribbeans beat Sri Lanka by 36 runs to clinch the fourth World Twenty here last night.
The West Indies team celebrate their ICC World Twenty20 triumph at the Premadasa Stadiumu00a0in Colombo yesterday.u00a0Pics/AFPu00a0
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“The Sri Lanka beat us twice in a practice match and in the Super Eights. But I told Chris (Gayle) that we can’t lose to them thrice. All the hard work paid off today. The West Indies are finally going well again, we have a great future,” said man of the match Samuels, who scored 78 off 56 balls.
Losing skipper Mahela Jayawardene said it was tough to lose before his home crowd, but wanted his team to learn from the mistakes and prepare for the future. “The way we started the game was fantastic, but a couple of mistakes in the field and a few bad overs shifted the momentum,” he said. Only last year, Jayawardene was part of the Sri Lankan team which lost in the final of the 50-50 World Cup to India at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium. “We are disappointed for the huge crowd that came to support us. We need to sit together, have a chat on what went wrong and then move on,” Jayawardene added. The captain top-scored for his side with 33 off 36 balls.