India won the nail biting match after defeating Pakistan with 5 runs to be reigned as the first World Twenty20 champions at the spectacular Wanders Cricket Stadium. Man of the match Irfan Pathan once again bowled an outstanding bowling spell of 3-16 which brought back India right into the game.

Gautam Gambhir and Rohit Sharma rescued India to establish a respectable total of 157.  The aggressive trio, Uthappa, Yuvraj and Dhoni failed to get going with the bat today.  The Pakistan bowlers did a great job in restricting India with Umar Gul doing most of the damage to the Indian batting lineup.  The Pakistani spinners Mohammed Hafeez and Afridi did the job for their captain by applying the brakes on the Indian batsmen in the mid overs.  Shahid Afridi was awarded the man of the series for his exceptional touch with the bat and the ball throughout the series.

RP Singh got India an early breakthrough by getting Mohammad Hafeez caught in the slips in the very first over.  In the very next over, he bowled Kamran Akmal out for a duck.  But Imran Nazir took the pressure off by hitting Sreesanth for 21 runs in the very first over.  Imran Nazir was soon run out a precise direct hit from Uthappa.

One needs to commend Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s calm, cool and collected captaincy.  Each time a bowler was bowling outside of the expected line and length he would run to have a word with the bowler.  He took a great decision in handling the last over to Joginder Sharma as Misbah-ul-Haq had hit off-spinner Harbhajan Singh for three sixes in the 18^th over.  In the final over, Joginder Sharma got Misbah-ul-Haq to play the lap shot at short fine leg to Sreesanth and registered a well deserved win for the Indians.

The Pakistani side was in tears as at one time in last over it seemed they had the match well in their hands.  But that is the very beauty of Twenty20 cricket that each ball is an event in itself, a format that has emerged as the future of Cricket.

Indian bollywood star came down to cheer the Indian team and for sure he was support to the team, he brings back home another winner.

Teams

India Team
Gautam Gambhir, Robin Uthappa, Yuvraj Singh, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (Captain and wicket-keeper), Rohit Sharma, Yusuf Pathan, Irfan Pathan, Joginder Sharma, Harbhajan Singh, S Sreesanth, RP Singh

Pakistan Team
Imran Nazir, Mohammad Hafeez, Younus Khan, Misbah-ul-Haq, Shoaib Malik (Captain), Shahid Afridi, Yasir Arafat, Kamran Akmal (wicket-keeper), Sohail Tanvir, Umar Gul, Mohammad Asif

Twenty20 Intl. debut:  YK Pathan (India)
Player of the match:    IK Pathan (India)
Player of the series:    Shahid Afridi (Pakistan)

Umpires:              MR Benson (England) and SJA Taufel (Australia)
TV umpire:           DJ Harper (Australia)
Match referee:     RS Madugalle (Sri Lanka)
Reserve umpire:  BR Doctrove (West Indies)

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3.21 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."