“MS Dhoni wanted another toss in 2011 World Cup Final”: Kumar Sangakkara

MS Dhoni who brought laurels for the country in 2011 World Cup as a Captain and played a great knock of 91* runs and lead India to lift the World Cup trophy after 28 years is a dream come true moment for all Indian cricket fans.

However, Sri Lankan great Kumar Sangakkara who was leading his country in 2011 World Cup final talked about the interesting confusion that happened during the final match at Mumbai. There was a confusion on the flip of the coin initially and due to Dhoni insistence toss happened again.

In an interview given by Kumar Sangakkara on the Ravichandran Ashwin Instagram series “Reminisce with Ash” as he was asked about the controversial toss in the World Cup final where the coin was tossed twice amid the cacophony of the Wankhede and eventually Sangakkara elected to bat.

Sangakkara talked about the entire incident in detail where he said “It was a case of I think it was the crowd. It was the crowd. It never happens in Sri Lanka. It only happens in India. Once at Eden Gardens, I couldn’t hear myself talk to the first slip.”

He further added that “I remember calling on the toss. And then, Mahi wasn’t sure what I had called. He said ‘Did you call tails?’. I said ‘No, I called tails’.

“And then the match referee said I won the toss. MS Dhoni said ‘no, no, no, he didn’t’ There was a little bit of confusion. Mahi said let’s have another toss of the coin. And that’s when the second one went about.

Also due to that cacophony, we were not able to listen to the toss properly and that created actual chaos. If there hadn’t two tosses Sangakkara was looking to bowl but the toss happened twice and Sangakkara went for Batting.

During the finals of the 2011 World Cup, Sri Lanka batted first and with the help of Mahela Jayawardene‘s century, the Sri Lankan team posted 274 runs which Indian team chased, in the end, to lift the World Cup after 28 years. Sangakkara said during the post-match presentation that the kind of team of India has even if we score 350 they would have gone ahead and chased those scores too.

Then the result of 2011 is known to everyone that India lifted the World Cup after 28 years thanks to the brilliance of Gautam Gambhir who scored 97 runs and MS Dhoni for his 91 not out.