Sri Lanka’s former captain Kumar Sangakkara has shed light on the toss controversy of the 2011 World Cup final against India. Sangakkara revealed the Indian skipper MS Dhoni was not able to hear his call of head because the crowd was so loud and the atmosphere was electric at the Wankhede Stadium on 2nd April 2011. In fact, the match referee Jeff Crowe said that Sangakkara has won the toss but Dhoni insisted that they must flip again.
Subsequently, the toss was done again and there was no confusion on the second attempt. Sangakkara once again called head to win the toss and decided to bat. The wicket-keeper batsman added that Dhoni would have liked to bat first had he won the toss.
The toss is crucial in the big matches and the captain who generally wins the toss in the final match of the major events, decides to bat first. It is never easy to chase under pressure and thus Kumar Sangakkara made the obvious choice of batting first.
Sri Lanka posted a competitive total of 274 runs after Mahela Jayawardene scored a fine century. Subsequently, India was able to chase down the highest World Cup final score after Gautam Gambhir scored 97 whereas MS Dhoni smashed 91. Thus, MS Dhoni-led team was able to handle the pressure especially after losing Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar cheaply.
“The crowd was huge. I remember calling on the toss then Mahi wasn’t sure and said `did you call tail and I said no I called head,” Sangakkara said while talking to Ravichandran Ashwin on ‘Reminiscence with Ash’.
“The match referee actually said I won the toss, Mahi said he did not hear the call. There was a little bit of confusion there and Mahi said let’s have another toss of the coin and heads went up again,” he added.
Meanwhile, Kumar Sangakkara is always praised for his smile after Dhoni launched the famous six to seal the second World Cup for the Indian team. Sangakkara revealed that a lot of sadness and disappointment was hidden behind that smile. However, the flamboyant was still gracious in defeat.
Sangakkara said: ”Whether we win or lose, we have this equilibrium on how to take a win or loss. The smile hides a huge amount of sadness, of disappointment, of thinking of 20 million people back in Sri Lanka who had been waiting for this for so long, since 1996. We had an opportunity in 2011, opportunity in 2007, then T20 opportunities in 2009 and 2012.”
Meanwhile, Kumar Sangakkara was well known to play the game in the right spirit. The stylish batsman is regarded as one of Sri Lanka’s most successful batsmen as he scored more than 27000 runs in his illustrious International career.
