It was April 2nd, 2011. It was a nice sunny day in Mumbai; the streets were bustling and very lively. Mumbai might have been the commercial capital of India, but that wasn’t the only reason why the city felt so excited and lively. Today was the day of the World Cup Final, and it was happening in Wankhede, Mumbai.

Cricket was almost like a religion in India; it was part of the culture. It was the uniting factor for over a billion people with over 600 different dialects. This was an especially extraordinary World Cup Final, because India has never won a World Cup on home soil. The coin toss was about to happen and the crowd was roaring. All eyes were on the center of the field, where the Indian captain M.S Dhoni tossed. The coin flew up, and flew down. Sri Lanka won the toss, and they chose to bat first. The runs were scored by running back and forth across the strip of dirt called the "pitch." Multiple runs were scored if the ball flew to the boundary or beyond. India was bowling (the delivery of the ball to the batsman, like pitching except with bounce) first. This was the first time two Asian teams, Sri Lanka and India, who were also powerhouses in the cricketing world, faced each other in a World Cup Final. Even the reigning four time champion Australia was eliminated by India in the quarter-final!

Upul Tharanga and Tillakaratne Dilshan were up to bat first. Tillakaratne Dilshan was the batsman with the most runs in the entire World Cup Series, so he was a lethal batsman to go up against. The first bowler was Zaheer Khan, he had the most wickets (kind of like caught outs or strike outs) going into the Final of the World Cup. Tharanga was up to bat, or known as “on strike,” and he got 2 runs. Soon after, Zaheer Khan bowled, and Tharanga hit it up to the side. It was caught, OUT! Now Dilshan was on strike, and he was getting quite some runs. But then he was finally out. It was a wake up call for Sri Lanka, since their best performing opening batsmen in the series were out. The Indian bowlers were doing very good. After a while the Sri Lankan skipper Kumar Sangakkara was batting with his buddy Mahela Jayawardene. Sangakkara and Jayawardene were carrying out a batting onslaught on the Indian bowlers.

Soon after, Sangakkara had 48 runs, he was very close to getting a half-century. Yuvraj Singh was bowling, he bowled. Sangakkara stepped to the side and swung. OUT! The ball had bounced off the bat and landed in M.S Dhoni’s hands. It was a major breakthrough for India! The crowd went wild! It was a huge play, India had taken out Sri Lanka’s captain. But Jayawardene was still making batting look easy, he was eventually on the verge of getting a 100 runs. Getting a 100 runs, or better known as a ‘ton’ or ‘century’ was a very big deal especially when batting in a World Cup Final. The Indian defense was doing very well to keep Jayawardene of the strike so he would not be able to get many runs and so were the Indian fielders, because they were catching the mistimed shots that the Sri Lankans accidentally hit. After a while, 7th order batsman Nuwan Kulasekara was on strike. He hit the ball backwards, the wicket-keeper (catcher) , M.S Dhoni raced after the ball and grabbed it. Dhoni threw the ball at the wickets (the three vertical stumps that if touched by the ball is an out), “DIRECT HIT! OUT!” yelled the commentators. But it was not Jayawardene, it was Kulasekara. Kulasekara wanted Jayawardene to get the ‘century’/100 runs so he ran slow so he would be out instead. It was a brave and heroic sign of commitment to the team. When Kulasekara was walking away, Jayawardene felt touched and patted Kulasekara’s back. That’s when Jayawardene went rage mode, he was hitting a bunch of shots in anger for many runs. It was interesting because for 95 percent of the time Jayawardene did not hit in anger, and he usually hits in anger against the opposition. That was his beast power. Finally, the Sri Lankan innings had ended. Their score was 274 runs and 6 wickets.

Now it was India’s turn. The first ball was about to be bowled. Virender Sehwag was on strike, he was a very good batsman, but Lasith Malinga was a great bowler too. The ball starts racing towards him, it deflects of his shin pad, which is an “LBW.” That also meant that he was out! The crowd was stunned into silence. 0 runs for 1 wicket. The Sri Lankans were full of joy, they were celebrating the downfall of the great Indian batsman. Then the Indian batting legend Sachin Tendulkar was batting. He had 18 runs and the crowd was excited that Sachin was batting. Malinga was coming fast and bowled, the ball edged on the bat and spun back and was caught. OUT! Chaos broke out in the stands. The Indian crowd was concerned, because if Sachin is out, India is in for something.

The Sri Lankans were celebrating. Gautam Gambhir was the batsman on strike. He was getting a lot of clean hits and had reached 50 runs, although his counterpart Virat Kohli did not. He was out at 35 runs. It was an outstanding play by Sri Lanka. The bowler had caught it the moment the ball left the bat! That was a big loss for India because Virat Kohli was a great batsman for getting a lot of big hits. That is when the captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni came onto strike. They were getting runs left and right. Afterwards, Gautam Gambhir had 97 runs. Gambhir was about to send a brilliant reply to Jayawardene’s 123 runs. The moment was tense. The crowd was waiting. Gambhir started the backlift of his bat. The ball was coming deceptively slow. Gambhir mistimed it, he swung. The crowd erupted and then became silent. WICKET! MIDDLE STUMP! It was a heart wrenching loss for India as well as for Gambhir.

Then, Yuvraj Singh was the next batsman. He was a very good power hitter. He used baseball-like swings and would frighten the opposition bowlers. Although they were batting well, India still needed to increase their run rate to win. So they started to swing at every shot resulting in Yuvraj Singh helping Dhoni get runs and preserve the run rate. Soon after, Yuvraj Singh was nurturing a power-batting offensive that was being spearheaded by Dhoni. They were hitting boundaries all day. No wicket were taken, yet.

Finally the moment had come, 4 runs were needed to win off of 15 balls. MS Dhoni was on strike and the ball is bowled by Nuwan Kulasekara. Time seems to slow down, everything is a blur. “DHONI FINISHES OFF IN STYLE! A MAGNIFICENT [SHOT] INTO THE CROWD! INDIA LIFTS THE WORLD CUP!,” exclaimed the commentators. Dhoni had proved himself to be a master in the clutch again.
The stadium had erupted. Sri Lanka had done very well, but it was not enough to hold off the determination of India. It was the biggest run chase in World Cup history. Mahendra Singh Dhoni was made “Man of the Match,” because of his late game heroics to win the match for India. Yuvraj Singh was made “Man of the Tournament.” Yuvraj Singh had done very well in the entire World Cup Series. He played as an outstanding bowler as well as a great batsman. That entire week India rejoiced. If there was a truly happy place on Earth that day:

It was only one place: India.