ICC Cricket World Cup 2011: India Won, Dhoni's Match-Winning Six, Gambhir 97, Wankhede Final vs Sri Lanka

The ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 was co-hosted by India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh across fourteen venues, with the final at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai representing India's home ground and its most important city for cricket. India came into the tournament on the back of strong form, with a batting line-up that included Sachin Tendulkar (playing in his sixth and final World Cup at the age of 37), Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, and MS Dhoni, and a bowling attack that featured Zaheer Khan as the primary pace threat alongside the spin of Harbhajan Singh and the medium pace options across the squad. The subcontinent conditions — slow pitches that turned through the course of matches, outfields that rewarded placement over power, and the demanding crowd atmosphere of the Indian venues — favoured the batting strengths that India had developed, and the team progressed through the group stage and knockout rounds with the kind of accumulating confidence that comes from playing tournament cricket in home conditions.

The Semi-Final vs Pakistan and the Road to the Final

India's semi-final against Pakistan at PCA Stadium, Mohali, on 30 March 2011 was one of the most watched cricket matches in the history of the game, drawing a television audience estimated across the region at several hundred million viewers and the attendance of both countries' prime ministers in the stadium — a gesture that symbolised the political significance that India–Pakistan cricket had acquired in the post-partition era. India won the match by 29 runs and advanced to the final. Sri Lanka, meanwhile, had produced consistently strong cricket across the tournament, with Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, and Tillakaratne Dilshan as their batting strength and Lasith Malinga as the bowling threat capable of taking wickets at any stage of an innings. In the final, Sri Lanka batted first and scored 274 for 6 from their 50 overs — a total that India needed to chase down, on their home ground, in the final that Sachin Tendulkar had been building toward across his six World Cup appearances.

Gambhir 97, Dhoni's Six, and India's Victory

India's chase of 275 in the final began badly: Virender Sehwag was out early, and Sachin Tendulkar — playing in what was widely understood would be his last World Cup — was dismissed for 18, leaving India at 31 for 2 in the sixth over. The chase was effectively rescued by Gautam Gambhir, whose innings of 97 from 122 balls was the foundation of India's successful pursuit — a measured, technically correct innings of the kind that the demanding context required, constructed through the middle overs while the bowling pressure remained high and the required rate was manageable. When Gambhir was dismissed for 97 — just three runs short of what would have been the defining century of the final — MS Dhoni was already at the crease, having promoted himself above Yuvraj Singh in the batting order in a captaincy decision that attracted immediate scrutiny. Dhoni had been in poor form in the tournament and the promotion of himself above Yuvraj — who had been India's best batsman across the tournament, taking wickets and scoring hundreds — was seen by many as a risk. Dhoni scored 91 not out from 79 balls and, with India needing six to win from the final stages of the innings, hit a straight six off Nuwan Kulasekara over the mid-on boundary to complete the victory. India won by 6 wickets with 10 balls remaining. The image of Dhoni raising his bat after the winning six — in front of a packed Wankhede Stadium — became one of cricket's most iconic photographs.