India shattered the day dreams of Sri Lanka by 6 wickets to lift the ICC WORLD CUP 2011, in style, at the Wankhade Stadium, Mumbai! MS Dhoni (91 not out) and Gautam Gambhir (97) helped India to win the ICC World Cup 2011 in a thriller of a game at Wankhade! Dhoni joined legendary Kapil Dev to lift the coveted trophy for India, after a very long wait of 28 years!
Sri Lankan pacer Lasith Malinga dismissed Sachin Tendulkar (18) and Virender Sehwag (0) early to give severe heart burn to millions of Indians, who were watching the game. Tendulkar was going smoothly as he hit two fours in his 14-ball 18 innings before Malinga struck in the seventh over.
Dhoni played a great captain's innings in the summit clash as he hit two six and eight fours in his 79-ball innings; & the icing on the cake was his sixer which made Indian score easily cross the required target of 275 by 2 runs! The skipper added a record 109-run partnership with Gambhir for the fourth wicket, which was the highest for India in World Cup finals, to chase the challenging 275-run target. Unlucky Gambhir narrowly missed the great chance to score a hundred in the World Cup final as Lankan all-rounder Thisara Parera clean bowled him in the 42nd over, when he was at 97!
President Pratibha Patil and her Sri Lankan counterpart Mahinda Rajapaksha were among the host of high-profile personalities who attended the India-Sri Lanka World Cup final match at a fully packed Wankhede stadium today! Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi, Union Minister Kapil Sibal, former Union Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor, Business tycoon Mukesh Ambani, Preity Zinta, Aamir Khan, Ranbir Kapoor, Suniel Shetty, Aftab Shivdasani and veteran actor Vinod Khanna along with southern superstar Rajnikant were also present to watch the great match, in the first All-Asian summit contest in the history of the tournament.
YUVRAJ SING WAS DECLARED THE MAN OF THE TOURNAMENT (MAN OF THE SERIES!) & INDIAN CAPTAIN M.S DHONI MAN OF THE MATCH!
At 11.30pm (Indian Standard Time), 02-04-11, the Indian Captain M.S. Dhoni Lifted The ICC World Championship Trophy!
Earlier, Sri Lanka's captain Kumar Sangakkara won the toss and elected to bat & Mahela Jayawardene slammed his 14th one-day hundred, second of this mega-event, to help Sri Lanka post 274/6 against India. India made one change in the side that beat Pakistan in the semifinal, bringing in the Kerala fast bowler Shanthakumaran Sreesanth in place of the injured Ashish Nehra, thus MAKING HIM A LUCKY MASCOT, as was the case in the 20-20 last year!
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TEAM INDIA : Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Shanthakumaran Sreesanth, Munaf Patel.
TEAM SRI LANKA : Kumar Sangakkara (capt), Mahela Jayawardene, Upul Tharanga, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Thilan Samaraweera, Chamara Kapugedera, Suraj Randiv, Thisara Perera, Nuwan Kulasekara, Lasith Malinga, Muttiah Muralitharan.
Umpires: Simon Taufel (AUS) and Aleem Dar (PAK)
TV umpire: Ian Gould (ENG)
Match referee: Jeff Crowe (NZL)
