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“And Dhoni finishes off in style! A magnificent strike into the crowd. India lift the World Cup after 28 years!” These words from Ravi Shastri are etched for eternity in the hearts of Indian cricketing fraternity. It instantly takes the whole nation down the memory lane when MS Dhoni launched a humongous six off Nuwan Kulasekara to seal the 2011 World Cup trophy.
Dhoni, the then skipper, scored an unbeaten 91 to take his team across the finishing line. Over a decade after the momentous occasion, Sunil Gavaskar has managed to find the ball and also the exact seat on which it landed.
Gavaskar revealed that the ball is currently in possession of a Hong Kong resident. Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) would request the person to hand over the ball for a museum.
“Gavaskar has informed an MCA Apex Council member that the ball is with a Hong Kong resident. The MCA’s newly formed museum committee will now approach Gavaskar and then subsequently request this person to hand over the ball so that the MCA can keep it in the museum whenever it’s built,” said a source in the MCA as quoted by Pune Mirror.
‘MCA to devote a permanent seat on MS Dhoni’s name’
MCA has further decided that the seat where the ball landed would be painted and decorated to celebrate its special association with Dhoni.
Ajinkya Naik, a member of the MCA Council, has also written a letter to the governing body to commemorate Dhoni’s achievement as a cricketer in a unique way.
“As an act of gratitude and tribute to Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s immense contribution to Indian cricket, the MCA can devote a permanent seat on his name at the stand where his famous World Cup-winning six had landed,” read the letter Naik wrote to the governing body.
“We can find out the area where the ball landed—and which seat it was flying to—after Dhoni smashed it to win the 2011 World Cup. We can paint and decorate the seat in a unique way to celebrate Dhoni’s association with Wankhede Stadium… We can have a plaque on that seat with some special text to honour that moment,” he added.
