India’s 2011 Cricket World Cup triumph under the captaincy of legendary MS Dhoni was a historic occasion for Indian cricket that’s well itched to each and every cricket fans’ memory.
The 2011 World Cup final saw India beating Kumar Sangakkara-led Sri Lanka by 6 wickets to lift cricket’s most prized possession for the 2nd time in history at the Wankhede Stadium, thanks to the match-winning contributions from Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Virat Kohli, Zaheer Khan and captain himself.
Apart from the India squad and fans, the famous World Cup success was even more special for the legendary Sachin Tendulkar who had won the trophy for the first time in his stellar 24-year-old career.
The Indian team also paid homage to Tendulkar at his home ground Wankhede Stadium, as they carried him on their shoulders and took a lap around the stadium.
It was the result of the cumulative efforts of the entire national squad but veteran Bengal batsman Manoj Tiwary feels that there is one more person who was instrumental in India’s World Cup success, even without being part of the team and he is none other than Sourav Ganguly.
He also pointed out almost the entire 2011 World Cup-winning players were all players groomed by Ganguly during his captaincy tenure. However, Ganguly, former India captain and current BCCI President, had retired from international cricket in 2008.
Tiwary told Sportskeeda in a Facebook live interview: “Sourav Ganguly has played a big part in building that team over a period of time. If you go deeper and see, the players who performed well when we won the World Cup in 2011, all the players started when Sourav Ganguly was leading the country.”
He further noted: “He gave so much of security to youngsters at that point in time, whether it be Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra or Gautam Gambhir. All that experience worked for us in 2011 under the brilliant captaincy of Dhoni.”
(With Sportskeeda Inputs)
