The excitement levels of Indian cricket fans are on the rise after ICC announced the complete schedule of the ODI World Cup 2023 which is going to be played in India from 5 October. The 46-day tournament will start with 2019 World Cup finalists, England and New Zealand clashing against each other at Narendra Modi stadium, Ahmedabad, and India will play its first match against Australia on 8 October at Chennai.
The Indian fans are quite hopeful of India winning the World Cup 2023 because India won it last time in 2011 when it was also the host of the tournament. What is making Indian fans more desperate to see their team win the WC2023 is the fact that India hasn’t won any ICC trophy since 2013.
The Indian team broke the 28 years old jinx in 2011 as it won the World Cup under the leadership of MS Dhoni and in the finals, India clashed against Sri Lanka and defeated it by 6 wickets.
Recently Muttiah Muralitharan, the former Sri Lankan spinner who was a part of the Sri Lankan squad which played the 2011 WC final, talked about the final match and also stated how he was sure that MS Dhoni would come to bat instead of Yuvraj Singh.
Batting first, Sri Lanka posted a total of 274/6 on the score board with the help of Mahela Jayawardena’s knock of 103 runs. India’s start was quite poor as Virender Sehwag got out for a duck and Sachin Tendulkar could also manage only 18 runs but Gautam Gambhir stood firmly on the crease and played a superb knock of 97 runs. Virat Kohli also played a knock of 35 runs in this match and when he got out, everyone thought that Yuvraj Singh would come to bat but surprisingly MS Dhoni promoted himself up the order and batted brilliantly to ensure his team won the match.
In the 2011 World Cup, MS Dhoni was going through a bad phase with bat so this decision of coming to bat before Yuvraj Singh who was in great form was a shock for many but in the end, it worked pretty well for India as Dhoni scored 91 runs in that match.
Earlier, Sachin Tendulkar opened up about this decision of MSD coming to bat before Yuvraj in an interview. Little Master stated that it was he who suggested it because he wanted the left-right combination for India as Sri Lanka had two off-spinners. This suggestion was discussed among the senior players and Gary Kirsten, coach of that time, and even MS Dhoni agreed to it.
During the event in which the complete schedule of the ODI World Cup 2023 was released, Muttiah Muralitharan said that he knew Dhoni would come to bat before Yuvraj because he (Mahi) knows how to play him better as they both used to play for the IPL team Chennai Super Kings at that time. Muralitharan said that Yuvraj was the best player of the tournament but he was not comfortable in playing him (Muttiah) and though he was wicketless, he was bowling well.
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