Kumar Sangakkara reveals ‘two coin toss’ story of 2011 World Cup Final

The game of cricket is referred to as a ‘Gentlemen’s Game’. This phrase was coined in the late 19th century when the inventors of Cricket – Englishmen and the ones who played the game were all Gentlemen in the true sense of the word.

But the late 20th century and 21st century modern day cricket is never far away from controversy. One of the most controversial moment is the event of coin toss happening twice in the world cup finals in Wankhede in 2011.

Sangakkara reveals full story

Sri Lankan captain during the all important 2011 World Cup was Kumar Sangakkara. The classy left handed batsman was among the best that the island nation has ever produced. Sri Lanka were looking to win a world cup for the second time after their initial triumph in 1996. The finals of the 2011 World Cup was set in Wankhade, Mumbai which means the home crowd of 45000+ was obviously favouring India.

The Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara while speaking with Ravichandran Ashwin in the episode of the Instagram series Reminisce with Ash, revealed how the situation unfolded. He said

I remember calling on the toss. And then, Mahi wasn’t sure what I had called. He said ‘Did you call tails?’. I said ‘No, I called tails’.And then the match referee actually said I won the toss. Mahi actually said ‘no, no, no, he didn’t’ There was a little bit of confusion. Mahi said let’s have another toss of the coin. And that’s when the second one went about

Not the first controversy in world cup final nor the last!!

This particular coin toss happening twice was neither the first time a controversial incident that took place in a world cup final nor was it the last. During the 2007 World Cup Finals in Barbados, the finals was decided by Duckworth Lewis method due to bad light and many felt that the finals should have been taken to reserve day and DL method was not ideal.

Also the latest 2019 world cup saw controversial overthrows runs added to England’s total in the last over and a bizzare rule of boundary count decided the winner after super over could not separate the two sides.