Sehwag shares 2011 WC final anecdote: ‘Sachin and I looked at each other…’ | Cricket

The victory in the 2011 World Cup remains etched in the memory of all Indian cricket fans. Team India had defeated Sri Lanka by six wickets in the final of the tournament, with captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni hitting the winning runs. However, India were put in a spot of bother early in the innings when Indian openers Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar were dismissed early in the 275-run chase.

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Sehwag was dismissed on a duck by Lasith Malinga in the very first over of the innings, while Tendulkar also fell in the seventh over to the Sri Lankan speedster. Interestingly, 11 years after the victory, Sehwag shared a story of how the duo shared its excitement over batting on the surface during the Sri Lankan innings.

“I’ll tell you a story about the 2011 World Cup final. Sachin Tendulkar was standing at midwicket, and I was standing at deep square leg. As the sun was setting, we noticed a lot of shine on the wicket. Both of us looked at it, and then looked at each other and signaled that it will be fun to bat on this wicket. Neither of us scored runs,” Sehwag said on Cricbuzz, as the panel of experts were discussing about form and lack of run-scoring, particularly relating to Virat Kohli’s rough patch.

“So all the discussions that there’s heat, the wicket is flat, you win the toss and choose to bat… if you are in that patch where you can’t score runs, you won’t score runs. It’s as simple as that,” Sehwag had further said.

Following the two early wickets, Gautam Gambhir (97) and Virat Kohli (35) had stitched a 83-run stand for the third wicket that steered India out of trouble. Dhoni, then, promoted himself ahead of Yuvraj Singh and remained unbeaten on 91, taking India to a second World Cup title.