India wins World Cup 2011

 

Pic 1. Team   India – the champions of World cup 2011; Pic 2: Streets full of crowds celebrating the epic win; Pic 3: Dhoni and his team after the win.

The golden moment arrived for India after a gap of 28 years as Dhoni hit a six to score the last four runs required to hold the sweet cup of glory ”“ team India won the World Cup 2011 on April 2 against Sri Lanka. As Sri Lanka went in to bat first its high score of 274 ending with a sixer by Parera seemed difficult to achieve. India loosing Sehwag on first ball by killer Malinga subdued the mood even further. Yet Dhoni not only kept his cool he answered Sri Lanka’s score back with a six at the end. It was a thriller match with a nail biting end. A sweet victory long awaited by India.

Sachin Tendulkar was carried on the shoulders by team members as the contingent walked around the Wankhede stadium along with their proudly grinning coach Gary Kirsten. Gary also got a shoulder ride as he proudly waved to a frenzied crowd with fireworks exploding in the back and drums and dhols playing with deafening sounds. Whole of India and world watched the game as India was not to be subdued by Sri Lanka’s balling attack of Lasith Malinga, Muttiah Muralidharan and Nuwan Kulasekara. Team India wet in champagne and taking swigs of the bottle waived at the cheering crowd that gave a standing ovation to their heroes.

Sydney siders all gathered in homes, clubs and pubs to watch the match and stayed awake the whole night as they rang each other in the early hours of the morning to congratulate on the historic win. Dhoni’s unbeaten 91 and Gautam Gambhir’s 97 helped India to strengthen its place as number one team in the world. “I am really happy to have won. It was very important for me to be on the winning side as people would have begun to question a few decisions I took for the final.

“First, they would have asked why I brought Sreesanth in for Ashwin and why I promoted myself up the order ahead of an in-form Yuvraj. I think that’s what pushed and motivated me to do well today,” Dhoni said.

Dhoni proved with his strategy that he is the unbeaten number one team leader in world cricket.

The crowd responded by cheering, shouting, waiving Indian flags, some crying the tears of joy as they waited for the team to receive the honours, medals and the cup. As current India’s half the population is less than 30 years many have not witnessed such a glorious moment the last victory for India being in 1983.

Besides the crowd, important personalities such as actor Aamir Khan, his wife Kiran Rao, actress Preity Zinta, Rahul Gandhi and mum Sonia Gandhi all came to the stadia for most of the matches to support the Indian cricket team and watch the euphoric world cup victory. Great Amitabh Bachchan they say came out with son Abhishek into the street to congratulate and shake hands with the crowd outside as people distributed sweets on the streets. Actor Nana Patekar, who was glued to the game throughout, greeted the team, saying they had given “the ultimate satisfaction” to the billion-plus people in India.

India is swarmed with wild celebrations all over the place from Mumbai to Kolkatta and worldwide, of course. Badhai Ho India!

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