Updated on
Summary Sri Lanka skipper Mahela Jayawardene has claimed the team aims to win it for the fans.
As the Sri Lankan nation gears up for one of the biggest cricket matches ever staged in the country, the national team is preparing to face off against the West Indies in the ICC World Twenty20 final, in a bid to claim their first large-scale victory since the 1996 World Cup triumph, and skipper Mahela Jayawardene has claimed the team aims to win it for the fans.“This is definitely the biggest game we have staged. It’s been a great couple of weeks for the entire country,” said Jayawardene.“The expectations from our fans are the same as they were at the start of the tournament. They wanted us to reach the final even then. And we must now win it for them.“But we have not gone ahead of ourselves since the tournament started,” he added. “In the final it will all depend on how we play on Sunday. Thats what T20 cricket is all about.”The tickets for the final, due to be played between Sri Lanka and the West Indies on October 7 at the R Premadasa (which has a seating capacity of 35,000) have been sold out for weeks, and the Lankans have the unique opportunity to grab the title in front of their home crowd.The team failed to make it to the semi-finals of the inaugural edition of the tournament, played in South Africa in 2007-08. While the second World T20, staged in England during 2009, saw the Lankan Lions making it to the tournament final, they ended up losing by 8 wickets to Pakistan (although Tillakaratne Dilshan won the Player of the Tournament award).The team was similarly unlucky in the 2009-10 World T20, held in the Caribbean, losing a semi-final against England by 7 wickets.However, home soil appears to have brought the Lankans luck, and they have all but breezed through the current edition of the World T20, for which they are the host nation.The only defeat the team have suffered in the tournament was a 32-run loss to South Africa in the group stages, which did nothing to dent their chances – having won all their Super Eights matches, in addition to the semi-final against Pakistan, Sri Lanka are now faced with the opportunity to secure their first World T20 win.
