· India, who were appearing in a tournament final for the 40th time have now suffered defeat in a tournament involving three or more teams on 21 occasions.
· This was the tenth clash between India and Sri Lanka in the final of a tournament. Sri Lanka have emerged victorious on four occasions, while India have won on five occasions. Both teams were declared joint winners once.
· This was the fifth time these two teams were facing each other in the Asia Cup final. Sri Lanka posted their second win over India. They had also beaten India in 1997-98 Asia Cup, which followed India's three successive title wins.
· India have now not registered a single title win in their last six ODI tournaments since winning NatWest Series in England in 2002.
· India have won only one tournament out of 11 they have played under Sourav Ganguly's captainship since 2000-01. Interestingly India have qualified for all the 11 finals!
· India have now not won a day-night final ever since beating Zimbabwe by ten wickets in Champions Trophy Final at Sharjah on 13-11-1998.
· Yuvraj Singh was making his 100th ODI appearance. He became 20th Indian and 135th player overall to do so.
· Sanath Jayasuriya just managed to complete his 2,000 runs at Premadasa Stadium before falling LBW to Pathan. His aggregate of 2,000 runs from 50 innings at an average of 44.44 with 4 hundreds and 16 fifties is the highest by any batsman on this ground.
· Jayasuriya, in fact, became only the third batsman in ODI history to aggregate 2,000 runs on a ground after two Pakistanis Inzamam-ul-Haq and Saeed Anwar, who have aggregated 2,464 and 2,178 runs respectively at Sharjah C.A. Stadium in UAE.
· The wicket of Mahela Jayawardene made Sachin Tendulkar the leading wicket-taker for India in Asia Cup matches. At the end of this match Tendulkar has taken 17 wickets at 20.70 in 20 matches in the Asia Cup, which surpassed Kapil Dev's tally of 15 wickets in 7 matches at an average of 13.00.
· Tendulkar's fifty was his first in last 10 tournament finals since scoring 69 against New Zealand in ICC Trophy Final at Nairobi Gym on 15-10-2000.
· The fifty was 69th of Tendulkar's career (besides 37 hundreds). He has now equalled Pakistan's Inzamam-ul-Haq's world record of most fifties in a career.
· Virender Sehwag (5 off 12 balls) once again failed to make a substantial contribution in final / grand final of a tournament. In 12 finals/ grand finals Sehwag has aggregated only 238 runs at an average of 23.80 with only one fifty - 82 off 81 balls vs. Australia in the 2002-03 World Cup at Johannesburg.
· Sourav Ganguly (4 off 20 balls) also proved a failure in the Asia Cup final. Before taking the captaincy, Ganguly had aggregated 677 runs in 16 finals / grand finals at an average of 45.13 with 2 hundreds and 3 fifties. He has aggregated only 266 runs in 11 innings in finals / grand finals since becoming India's captain at 26.60 with one hundred and one fifty.
· VVS Laxman (12 off 34 balls) is proving to be a disaster at least in finals/ grand finals. In 8 finals his run-aggregate read only 123 at 17.57 with a highest of 37 vs. Sri Lanka in the Coca Cola Series at this same ground on 05-08-2001.
· The 46-run partnership between Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan is India's best for the ninth wicket against Sri Lanka, surpassing the 33 between Sameer Dighe and Zaheer at this same ground on 05-08-2001.
· The Harbhajan- Zaheer partnership is also the highest for ninth wicket in Asia Cup. The pair bettered the previous record stand of 35 between Khaled Mahmud and Abdur Razzaq for Bangladesh against India at Colombo SSC on July 21 in this tournament.
· Tendulkar ended the tournament with 281 runs at 56.20 and 12 wickets at 12.25. He, in the process, became only the second Indian allrounder after Kapil Dev to aggregate 250-plus runs and 10-plus wickets in a tournament. Kapil made 303 runs besides taking 12 wickets in 8 matches in 1983 World Cup.
· Tendulkar also became the first allrounder to perform this feat in the history of the Asia Cup.
· Atapattu won his 18th Man of the Match award.
· Jayasuriya won Man of the Series award for the ninth time in his career.
More from rediff