PREVIEW — India – young, bold, brave and forceful, is within one win of becoming the first team to hold all three ICC trophies simultaneously. Sri Lanka is that very same win away from making the final Twenty20 International appearances of Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardena memorable for all the right reasons.
Here is a look at the match facts ahead of the ICC World T20 final on Sunday (April 6). –
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Match Facts:
Sri Lanka v India
Sri Lanka has won 40 of their completed 64 T20Is. Only Nepal (two wins and one defeat) has a higher win percentage.
Sri Lanka also has the highest win percentage in ICC World Twenty20 matches, having won 20, lost nine and tied one of their 30 games in the tournament.
Angelo Mathews will play his 53rd consecutive T20I. The record for most T20Is in a row is 54, by Saeed Ajmal, from May 2009 to August 2013.
Sri Lanka has won five of the last six T20Is that they have batted first in.
India has won seven successive T20Is heading into this game.
India has won three of the five T20Is played against Sri Lanka, losing the other two.
Virat Kohli led India to a 39 run victory over Sri Lanka in the most recent T20I meeting, smashing 68 runs off just 48 balls.
Kohli is the tournament’s leading run scorer, posting 242 runs from just five innings.
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Approaching milestones
Mahela Jayawardene needs eight runs to become the first player to score 1,000 runs in ICC World Twenty20 matches.
Mahela Jayawardene needs 31 runs to reach 1,500 in T20Is. Tillakaratne Dilshan needs 66 runs to reach this landmark.
Tillakaratne Dilshan needs one catch to become the first player to take 25 catches as a fielder for South Africa.
Kumar Sangakkara needs 19 runs to become the fourth player to score 25,000 international runs.
Tillakaratne Dilshan needs 49 runs to reach 15,000 international runs.
Yuvraj Singh needs 43 runs to reach 1,000 in T20Is.
Ravichandran Ashwin needs to claim one wicket to reach 25 in T20Is; becoming only the second India player to reach the milestone.
Virat Kohli needs 71 runs to reach 900 in T20Is; becoming only the fourth India player to reach the milestone.
Yuvraj Singh needs seven sixes to become only the third player in T20I history to register 70 maximums.
Yuvraj Singh is in line for his 40th T20I cap.
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Key Battle
Rangana Herath v Virat Kohli
Rangana Herath has taken the tournament’s best figures of 5-3 in Sri Lanka’s crunch match against New Zealand and will be hopeful of putting in a similar display against India.
Herath faces a tall-order against the quite scintillating Virat Kohli who appears to be getting better and better. Kohli has accumulated the most runs in this tournament having racked up 242 of them. The India batsman’s crucial knock of 72* off just 44 balls in the semi-final against West Indies meant he sealed a place in ICC World Twenty20 final for his country.
