Had asked Virender Sehwag to not move in 2011 World Cup Final: Sachin Tendulkar

Sachin Tendulkar, the former Indian cricketer, said that he instructed Virender Sehwag to not move from his position during the 2011 World Cup Final. Sachin became Lasith Malinga’s second victim after Sehwag was trapped in front for a duck. The early wickets pushed the Men in Blue on the backfoot in their match against Sri Lanka at the iconic Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.

Sachin started with a couple of fours before Malinga found his outside edge with India’s score at 31 in the seventh over. Tendulkar wanted things to pan out the same way like in the quarter-final against Ricky Ponting’s Australia at the Motera Stadium in Ahmedabad.

We had done the same thing in the quarterfinal: Sachin Tendulkar

“I came back to the dressing room after I got out and went and sat in my seat. During the quarterfinal, against Australia, after our (Sachin & Viru’s) partnership, I had returned to the dressing room and was lying down on the physio’s table and Viru was next to me.

We hadn’t moved. Even this time (at Wankhede), coincidentally, Viru happened to be there and I asked him to sit next to me and not move,” Sachin was quoted as saying in The Times of India (TOI).

“Yes, I said, ‘nothing doing. Tu yahan se hilega nahi (you won’t move from here). Because even in the quarterfinal, it had worked well for us. We had done the same thing after our partnership in the quarterfinal,” Sachin added.

After Sachin and Sehwag’s dismissal while chasing 275, it was Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir, who both helped India stage a comeback. After their  83-run stand, Gambhir and MS Dhoni carried forward the good work. Albeit the former got out on 97, Dhoni’s unbeaten 91 took India over the finishing line. Dhoni stitched together a 54-run stand with Yuvraj Singh to seal the deal.

Though Sehwag and the Master Blaster floundered in the final, the duo played a key role in the tournament. Tendulkar was India’s highest run-scorer with 482 runs in nine games at an average of 53.55. Sehwag, on the other hand, notched 380 runs with a century and half-century each.