On this day, 11 years ago, the West Indies cricket team won their first ever T20 World Cup in 2012. Undeniably, Windies has been the exceptional team in the past 4-5 years ago; however, unfortunately, they didn’t qualify for the last two T20 World Cups owing to their poor performance in the shortest format of the game. However, the West Indies will be in action in the 2024 T20 World Cup, as they qualified this time as the host nation.
On October 7, 2012, the West Indies won by 36 runs against Sri Lanka at R. Premadasa Cricket Stadium in Colombo to lift their title in the shortest format of the game. Speaking about the match, it was West Indies skipper Daren Sammy who won the toss and invited the home team to field first during the final game. After opting to bat first, the visitors had a terrible start in the final game.
Notably, star openers Johnson Charles and power hitter Chris Gayle departed after scoring 0 and 3 runs, respectively. Following them, star batter Marlon Samuels took the onus as he hit 78 runs from 56 balls, featuring three boundaries and six sixes, with a solid strike rate of 140, which boosted their middle order during the play as well as guided their side to a heroic win.
After his dismissal, Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard departed for just 2 and 0 runs, respectively. Later, towards the end, skipper Daren Sammy remained undefeated with 26 runs to post a narrow total of 137/6 in the given 20 overs. However, the hosts tried every inch to chase down the total but got dismayed for just 101 runs. Sri Lanka’s skipper, Mahela Jayawardene, piled up 33 runs with Kumar Sangakkara, who also scored 22 runs.
Following their dismissal, no players from the team could cross the double-digit mark and faltered in 18.4 overs to give the first ever win to the powerful West Indies team. Following the win, star middle-order batter Marlon Samuels received Player of the Match for his stellar 78-run knock as well as grabbing one wicket. Following 2012, the strong West Indies grabbed their next title in 2016 after defeating the Virat Kohli-led India and England teams in the semi-final and final to win their second title in host country India.