2012 T20 World Cup

Result

Player of the Match (Final)

Marlon Samuels, West Indies

Tournament format

The last 12-team edition before the tournament expanded to 16 teams in 2014. 4 groups of 3, round robin, top 2 per group advancing to an 8-team "Super Eights" stage split into two groups. Semi-finals then a final.

Full match archive

Every match of the 2012 tournament, not just the final — all 26 group-stage, Super 8 and semi-final matches. See all 26 matches →

Final: match context

West Indies won their first World Twenty20 title, beating hosts Sri Lanka by 36 runs in front of a raucous 38,000-strong crowd at Colombo's R. Premadasa Stadium -- the first time a host nation had ever reached the final of the tournament. Batting first after winning the toss, West Indies lost both openers cheaply -- Chris Gayle for a duck and Johnson Charles for 3 -- to slip to 14 for 2 inside six overs. Marlon Samuels then produced the innings of the tournament, rebuilding with 78 off 56 balls that included six sixes, one of which -- struck 108 metres -- was the longest of the entire tournament. Captain Darren Sammy's late 26 off 15 balls helped West Indies add 108 runs in the final ten overs, lifting the total to a competitive 137 for 6. Sri Lanka's reply never recovered from an early collapse. Dilshan was dismissed for a duck by Ravi Rampaul, and two costly run-outs compounded the damage as Sri Lanka slid to 69 for 7 by the 14th over. Mystery spinner Sunil Narine was especially destructive, taking 3 for 9 from his 3.4 overs and choking off any hope of a recovery. Captain Mahela Jayawardene's 33 was the top score of the innings, but Sri Lanka were bowled out for just 101 in 18.4 overs, handing West Indies a comfortable 36-run win. Samuels, having top-scored with the bat and also chipped in with the ball (1 for 15), was the clear choice for Player of the Match. The victory was West Indies' first major ICC trophy since the 2004 Champions Trophy, and arrived at a time when the region's traditional Test and ODI powers had been in a long decline -- Twenty20's shorter, more explosive format instead playing directly to a squad stacked with power-hitters like Gayle, Samuels and Kieron Pollard. The celebrations that followed, led by Gayle's trademark "Gangnam Style"-era dancing on the outfield, became one of the more widely replayed images from the tournament and helped cement the format's growing association with individual showmanship. For Sri Lanka, hosting duties had delivered a home final but not a home trophy -- their second runner-up finish in three editions of the tournament, a frustration that would only be resolved with their eventual triumph two years later in 2014.

Sources

• Wikipedia: 2012 ICC World Twenty20 final
• Wikipedia: 2012 ICC World Twenty20