MS Dhoni reveals ’emotionally high’ moment from India’s historic 2011 World Cup final win

April 2 marked the 12th anniversary of India's celebrated victory in the 2011 World Cup, where Dhoni played a crucial part in leading the team to triumph, ending the wait of 28 long years

New Delhi: Former captain MS Dhoni has shared an anecdote from India’s historic World Cup win in 2011, revealing that he became ’emotionally high’ when people started singing ‘Vande Mataram’ just 15-20 minutes before the winning moment in that summit clash.

Sunday, April 2 marked the 12th anniversary of India’s celebrated victory in the 2011 World Cup, where Dhoni played a crucial part in leading the team to triumph, ending the wait of 28 long years.

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“The best feeling was 15-20 minutes (before the winning moment). We didn’t need a lot of runs, the partnership was well-placed, there was a lot of dew. And the stadium started to sing Vande Mataram. That atmosphere I feel is very difficult to recreate – maybe in this (upcoming 2023) World Cup, there is a similar scenario, once the stadium, the fans start contributing,” Dhoni was quoted as saying by ICC.

It’s a very difficult (atmosphere) one to replicate. But it can only be replicated if the occasion is similar to that (in 2011) and there are like 40, 50 or 60,000 people who are singing.

To me, it was not the winning moment, it was 15-20 minutes ago when emotionally I was very high. And at the same time, I wanted to get done with it. We knew that we will win this from here, and it was very difficult for us to lose. So yes, you know it was more of a sense of satisfaction, job done, let’s move on from here,” he added.

The day of the 2011 World Cup victory was also a momentous occasion for the Indian cricketing icon Sachin Tendulkar, who had been striving for more than 20 years to lift the coveted trophy.

Dhoni revealed there were times when he wondered if Tendulkar would claim that elusive prize.

“Yes, we all knew that it was paaji’s (Tendulkar) last World Cup and throughout the tournament, we had the feeling that we want to do it for him,” the former India captain said.

“But at the same time, often you have something going in your mind where you say, God has given him everything. And God keeps one thing away from every individual. Is it that 50-over World Cup that God has decided that he will keep with himself?

We said we will try our best, we will make sure that we are giving a 100% when it comes to the cricket matches and we will accept the results. At the end, I was very happy to be on the winning side, but it took a lot from the full team and the support staff,” he added.