2009 ICC World Twenty20 Final
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| Event | 2009 ICC World Twenty20 | ||||||||
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| Pakistan won by 8 wickets | |||||||||
| Date | 21 June 2009 | ||||||||
| Venue | Lord's, London | ||||||||
| Player of the Match | Shahid Afridi (Pak) | ||||||||
| Umpires |
Daryl Harper (Aus) Simon Taufel (Aus) |
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The 2009 ICC World Twenty20 Final was played between Sri Lanka and Pakistan at the Lord's in London on 21 June 2009. This was the 2nd ICC World Twenty20. Pakistan won the match by eight wickets, its first World Twenty20 victory, after being the runners-up at the very previous tournament at 2007 Pakistan became the 2nd team to win this title after India. This was the second consecutive time where both the finalists were Asian teams. In the stadium, the match was watched by 28,000 spectators and almost 32 million people watched it on TV.
Prior to this match Sri Lanka and Pakistan played 4 times against each other in Twenty20s, where both teams won 2 times each. Their most recent meeting was in that same event where Sri Lanka won by 19 runs. Including that they also met another time in the World Twenty20, which was in the previous event at 2007. Pakistan won by 33 runs in that match.
Sri Lanka had a very smooth tournament excluding the final match. They were the only unbeaten team at that stage. They won against West Indies in the group stage and eliminated Australia in the group stage by beating them by six wickets. They were the group champions of Group C. In Super8s they were potted in the Group F. They won against Pakistan, Ireland and New Zealand to become the group topper of this group. Dilshan's unbeaten 96 helped Sri Lanka to beat the West Indies team by 57 runs and qualify for their first ICC World Twenty20 Final.
Despite entering the tournament with a number of the players who had finished second to India during the inaugural World T20, including all-rounders Shahid Afridi and captain Shoaib Malik, fast bowler Umar Gul and batsman Misbah-ul-Haq – supported by teenage but promising left-arm pacer Mohammad Amir – Pakistan's road to the final wasn't smooth like the Lankans. They were in the clinch of elimination at group stage, but a massive 82 runs win against the Netherlands washed out all the tensions for them. Though the loss against host England made them stay behind of the hosts at Group B. Still the tournament system made them the B1 of group B. In the Super 8s, they lost to the Sri Lankan team by 19 runs at their first match. which led them to another tension situation. But another gigantic and dominating win against New Zealand helped them to release the pressure, punctuated by Gul becoming the first bowler to record a five-wicket haul in a T20 international. An easy win against Ireland – redemption for a number of the Pakistani players who had been in the ODI team that had lost to the Irish in Jamaica in the 2007 World Cup that not only knocked them out of the tournament but proved to be Bob Woolmer's final match coaching Pakistan before his death – helped Pakistan to board on the semi final being the second of Group F next to Sri Lanka.
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