West Indies are the CHAMPIONS of T20 cricket

KOLKATA: What a finish! West Indies one moment down and out and England cock-a-hoop and smelling victory – both teams went into the final over with West Indies needing 19 for victory. The odds were heavily on England as they had one of the best bowling units at the death. Ben Stokes bowled that crucial last over and what happened to the first four balls he will never forget.

Carlos Brathwaite, who till yesterday had played only seven T20 internationals for West Indies and never hit a single boundary in any of them suddenly became his team’s savior and hero as he sent the first six balls of that final over sailing into the stands for consecutive sixes that saw West Indies overhaul England’s total of 155-9 and win by four wickets with two balls to spare.

Stokes was left speechless and dejected as the fourth ball sailed over the stands at deep midwicket.

Brathwaite’s cameo knock of 34 off 10 balls overshadowed the batting of the real hero of the West Indies victory Marlon Samuels who held up one end to remain unbeaten on 85 scored off 66 balls with nine fours and two sixes.

Samuels kept a cool head when wickets were falling around him to play a match-winning knock as he had done in 2012 in the final against Sri Lanka at the R Premadasa Stadium when he scored 78 off 56 balls to give West Indies their last win in the World T20 tournament. No team has won the World T20 title twice and West Indies have become the first to do so.

Samuels and Brathwaite added 54 runs off 25 balls in an unbroken stand that brought the crowd back to life after England had controlled the West Indies power hitting by capturing the first six wickets for 107 runs in 16 overs.

West Indies lost their first three wickets for 11 runs by the third over and were never really able to dominate the batting the way they had done against other teams in the tournament, until the final over. England bowled some excellent deliveries and their fielding was outstanding.

A disconsolate Joe Root and Ben Stokes after England had been robbed off a win in the final over of the World T20 final on Sunday.

West Indies and Samuels had Sri Lanka umpire Kumar Dharmasena to thank for their historic victory. When he had scored 27 Samuels was given out caught behind by Jos Buttler off Liam Plunkett by umpire Rod Tucker. Samuels was almost half way to the dugout when Dharmasena spoke to Tucker and the umpires called for a review of the catch. To the disappointment of England and the joy of the West Indies TV replays showed the ball hitting the ground before Buttler caught it. The incident took place in the seventh over with West Indies reeling at 37-3. If Samuels had gone at that point, it was very unlikely that that West Indies would have been celebrating 13 overs later. Samuels went onto use the reprieve to guide West Indies to their memorable win and with it pick up the Man of the Match award.

England did extremely well until the final over to defend their total of 155-9 largely based on Joe Root’s knock of 54 off 36 balls (7 fours). Buttler scored 36 off 22 balls and helped England recover to 84-4 after Samuel Badree had reduced them to 23-3 by dismissing Jason Roy for a second ball duck and Eoin Morgan for five and Andre Russell sent back Alex Hales for one.

India’s Virat Kohli was named Man of the Tournament.

West Indies had reason to have a double celebration in one day when earlier their Women’s team beat Australia to emerge champions for the first time.