The day West Indies fulfilled their destiny and England started the journey towards theirs

While Daren Sammy's men had to prove they deserved the glory, Eoin Morgan's men had to embrace their failure so they could learn to win

England vs West Indies, T20 World Cup final, Kolkata, 2016

West Indies won by four wickets

It was the greatest T20 match of them all. A world final, at one of cricket's iconic venues, and blessed with a coup de theatre that, almost a decade later, still seems far-fetched. But the greatness of Kolkata 2016 does not lie simply in the events of that sweaty, extraordinary final over but in the confluence of narratives that had arced around one another all tournament long, and now - at the crunch moment - manifested as nothing less than destiny.

Destiny, first and foremost, for West Indies: the first great T20 dynasty. Their victory in 2012 had been an early vindication for a generation that had been disparaged as "mercenaries" for their advocacy of the IPL, at the apparent expense of the international game. Now, under the unifying leadership of Daren Sammy, they hit back at those jibes in one final heist. They were galvanised by the "disrespect" of the WICB, with whom they had been embroiled in a bitter pay dispute, and further fired up by media disparagement, particularly a suggestion by Mark Nicholas on this website.

While the identity of Carlos Brathwaite as their ultimate hero came somewhat out of the blue, the team tactic that empowered those four brutal launches through the line did not. Jos Buttler would later acknowledge the power of the six, and his ability to hit them at will, as a vital means of managing risk in a run-chase scenario.

But it was destiny, too, for England's rising team of world-beaters. Barely a year on from humiliation at the 50-over World Cup, Eoin Morgan had pulled together a brand-new band of likely lads, few of whom - at that stage - had played any significant cricket in India, IPL or otherwise. He exhorted his charges to "embrace the naivety" of their campaign, to lean into their inexperience and ride the wave with eyes wide shut. And for a glorious fortnight, up to and including the first 39 overs of the final, they freestyled with alacrity to give the impression that youthful bravado could conquer all.

Had that final over played out differently, the story of Kolkata would have been a tale of two sucker punches - each of them delivered by the optimistic offspin of Joe Root, whose cheeky-chappie persona had West Indies on their knees in only the second over of their chase. He'd already cemented his status as the player of the tournament-elect by marshalling England's recovery from 8 for 2 with a crucial half-century. Now, he was tossed the ball by Morgan in the powerplay to play West Indies' egos like a banjo.

From the forges of painful defeat rise those who can survive to win another day Ryan Pierse / © Getty Images

In their opening match of the tournament, Chris Gayle had taken England's rookies back to school with 11 sixes in his 47-ball century. Now he and Johnson Charles departed in the space of three Root deliveries, each honking a length ball down the throat of Ben Stokes at long-on/off. When Lendl Simmons was pinned first-ball by David Willey to leave West Indies 11 for 3 after 15 balls, it required a stunning rearguard from Marlon Samuels to keep his side in any sort of contention.

But in the end, Samuels' gloating, borderline psychotic celebrations - including an infamous, feet-up press conference in which he demeaned Stokes as a "nervous laddie" who "doesn't learn" - told a different story, and a defining one, insofar as England's own rise to white-ball pre-eminence is concerned.

With 18 runs to defend in the final over, and the trophy winking at them from the sidelines, Stokes was the hot-headed match-winner England thought they needed at the crunch moment. Hindsight relates that a cooler customer would have been a better option.

Morgan himself says he regrets not stepping in as Stokes began to drown in the humidity of the moment, to encourage his bowler to catch his breath and reconsider his options as Brathwaite, in his own captain's words, "swung for the hills". But it was not a mistake that Morgan would make three years later, when a first-ball wide in the 2019 World Cup Super Over threatened to tip Jofra Archer's equilibrium over the brink with equally catastrophic consequences.

Nor would the lesson be lost on Stokes either. His utter determination to stay the course, both in that 2019 final and in the 2022 T20 version that followed, stemmed directly from his devastation at letting his side down in the clutch moment in Kolkata (and, indeed, in a differently hot-headed reckoning in Bristol in 2017…) As a result, his own words to Archer before that Super Over - "win or lose, today does not define you" - carried a resonance that soared far beyond the usual platitude.

It was the ultimate lesson that could not have been learned any other way. Sometimes, experience really is everything.

Andrew Miller is UK editor of ESPNcricinfo. @miller_cricket

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

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