NEW DELHI: MS Dhoni (91 not out) and Gautam Gambhir (97) helped India beat Sri Lanka by six wickets to win the ICC World Cup 2011 at Wankhede stadium in Mumbai on Saturday. Dhoni joined legendary Kapil Dev to lift the coveted trophy for India.
Dhoni played captain's innings in the summit clash as he hit two sixes and eight fours in his 79-ball innings and raced to fifty in just 52 balls.
The skipper added a record 109-run partnership with Gambhir for the fourth wicket, which was highest for India in World Cup finals, to chase the challenging 275-run target.
Gambhir missed to score a hundred in the World Cup final as Lankan all-rounder Thisara Parera clean bowled him in the 42nd over.
After losing two quick wickets, Virat Kohli (35) added a valuable 83-run stand with Gambhir to resurrect the Indian innings.
Sri Lankan pacer Lasith Malinga dismissed Sachin Tendulkar (18) and Virender Sehwag (0) early to jolt the India run-chase. Tendulkar was going smoothly as he hit two fours in his 14-ball 18 innings before Malinga struck in the seventh over.
India started the run-chase on terrible note as they lost Virender Sehwag (0) on the second ball of the match as Malinga trapped dashing opener LBW in his opening over.
Earlier, Mahela Jayawardene slammed 14th one-day hundred, second of the mega-event, to help Sri Lanka post 274/6 against 1983 champions.
Jayawardene used all his experience to score unbeaten 88-ball 103 as he hit 13 fours and raced to his hundred in just 84 balls.
With this Jayawardene joined the elite group of batsmen who scored a century in the World Cup finals - Clive Lloyd ('75), Viv Richards ('79), Arvinda de Silva ('96), Ricky Ponting ('03) and Adam Gilchrist ('07).
Thisara Perera joined the party in their batting powerplay as he slammed a six and three fours in his 9-ball 22 blitzkrieg. Sri Lanka piled agony for India in the period as they scored 63 runs and lost only a wicket.
For India, Zaheer Khan and Yuvraj Singh took two wickets apiece to halt Sri Lanka innings before Jayawardene started dominating the proceedings with Nuwan Kulasekara (32).
In between, Zaheer equalled Shahid Afridi as leading wicket-taker when Chamara Kapugedera became his 21st victim of the World Cup.
