Congratulations to the West Indies; overturning the odds with a thumping win against Sri Lanka in the World Twenty20.

From the coaches dug out, how did they do it, and what can you learn from it with the teams you coach?

West Indies Batting

• Left/Right Hand combinations: Chris Gayle's left/right partnerships with Charles and Samuels propelled the West Indies to the final. He was the aggressor in most of the games with the right handers supporting him well. In the final Marlon Samuels took the reigns. Bowling sides could not settle in the Powerplay overs as they constantly had to change their lines, fields and bowlers.
• Manage Energy: The West Indies are rarely out of breath with bat in hand, ensuring that they are clear in body and mind to face each ball and maximise each contact. Gayle did this well throughout the competition wasting little energy on scampering between the wickets and focusing all his energy on ball striking. Samuels did this brilliantly under pressure in the final allowing him to take Malinga down for his worst bowling analysis ever. The message sent from the WI camp to the SL team over those 2 overs was huge.
• Backloading: Marlon Samuels and Darren Sammy used Malinga’s consistency against him taking Lasith for 21, 19 and 10 in his last 3 overs. They looked to load back to come forward, stand deep in the crease and get under the yorker attempts. Samuels in particular shifted the momentum in the game in the 13th and then again in 16th over of the final using this approach.

West Indies Bowling

West Indies used spin (especially spin away from the swing of the bat) excellently in the Powerplay. 4 of the 6 overs were bowled by spinners with Rampaul providing a wicket taking edge in overs 2 and 6.

Sri Lanka opened with two right handers and West Indies countered with Badree’s Leg-spin.

Then when Dilshan was removed with the 7th ball, they opted for the off spin of Samuels to take the ball away from Sangakkara for the 3rd over.

Jayawardene knew at half time that he didn't have power hitters to take 19-21 runs per over as Samuels had done against them in the 1st innings, so a fast start was needed to take pressure off the middle order.

The WI spin-heavy tactics prevented this. The pressure built, the game was over.

West Indies Captain/Coach Dynamic

Eyebrows were raised when Otis Gibson appointed Darren Sammy as captain, yet the observers who knew Sammy well knew how solid he was as a man, how hard he trained, how relaxed he is under pressure and yet how strong he is over the things that he holds dear.

The Gibson/Sammy combination has worked brilliantly, holding strong when Chris Gayle was at odds with the WICB, making progress with the squad during tough tours of England and India and resulted in a World Cup win.

Gibson assembled a good management team including Ex-Middlesex T20 winning Coach, Toby Radford.

The way that they managed expectations, adapted to conditions and communicated to the outside world has been impressive from start to finish.

Can we learn from this for our own decisions on Captaincy?

Is the best player always the right one to be your lead man on the field?

Have you got a Darren Sammy who can lead without necessarily being your 'Top Gun'?