April 2, 2011, is a historic day in the history of Indian cricket as India has won for the second time the 50-over World Cup. They defeated Sri Lanka, which had been unbeaten by six wickets at Wankhede Stadium in the tournament until then.
However, a bizarre incident occurred even before the match started. Toss took place twice to determine who would first bat or bowl and it sparked numerous media speculations.
At that time, Kumar Sangakkara was the captain of Sri Lanka and he himself had a detailed explanation of what happened in the middle. He recalled that India skipper MS Dhoni was unable to hear what I had been calling because of the crowd’s extreme noise at the Wankhede stadium.
Sangakkara also remembered an instance when the first slip fielder was unable to hear what he said at the jam-packed crowd’s courtesy of the Eden Gardens.
The left-hander then mentioned, returning to the toss confusion, that Dhoni then suggested flipping the coin again, and that Sri Lanka would win the toss. “I think it was a case of being the crowd. It was that crowd. In Sri Lanka this never happens. It just happens to me in India. Once in Eden Gardens, I couldn’t hear the first slip speaking to myself. Then at Wankhede of course.
“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 heads’. And then the match referee actually said I won the toss. Mahi actually 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,” Kumar Sangakkara said in a live Instagram session while he was talking to Ravi Ashwin.
The 42-year-old is not sure if he was lucky as Sri Lanka went on to lose the game, despite winning the toss in a decisive finale and getting a chance to bat first. He also felt that if Dhoni had won the toss and the story might have been different in that case, India would have batted first too.
“I’m not sure if I won it was luck. Probably, if I had lost the toss I might have been able to bat India. We ‘d have chased them.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login