document: Geoffrey Boycott : India 's World Cup final victory over Sri Lanka fitting reward for a superb team effort Before the final everyone was talking about the big two , Muttiah Muralitharan and Sachin Tendulkar . Could Murali go out with a big bang ? Or Tendulkar score his hundredth hundred and make a billion people happy ? No . To both . This match was n't about individuals . It was about the team and it was a fantastic effort by India . Muralitharan 's last game was not great . He was flat and his bowling lacked its usual venom . Sachin fell early , leaving MS Dhoni to show the way . He had the temperament and the will to see India home . It was a marvellous , tense and thrilling performance . Tactically , it was not Dhoni 's best day as captain . His bowlers were poor in the last 10 overs . Then Virender Sehwag and Tendulkar , his big two batsmen , went early to make Sri Lanka favourites . Gautam Gambhir steadied India 's nerves playing well for his 97 . But with the three off-spinners starting to spin the ball and causing problems , particularly for Gambhir , Dhoni made a brave and sensible decision to promote himself ahead of the in-form batsman Yuvraj Singh , who was eventually named man of the tournament . Dhoni , as a right hander , finds it easier than Yuvraj , who is left-handed , to play the off-spinners turning the ball but it was still a brave decision because Dhoni had made very few runs this tournament . At the start of his innings , he was careful and a little scratchy but , once into his stride , he bludgeoned the off-spinners with old-fashioned bottom-hand power and quick bat speed . Dhoni 's performance and the whole day was a great advert for 50-over cricket , especially as some countries want the next World Cup to revert to a 40-over format . Well , you can forget that now . India is the financial powerhouse of world cricket . Television stations are competing for the rights , companies are queuing up to be sponsors and now , with India as world champions , I ca n't see them agreeing to change the format in the near future . The only disappointing aspect was the toss . That was a pathetic episode . My experience of 25 years playing the game and 20 years commentating tells me something definitely was n't right . It was n't in the spirit of cricket . The match referee supervises the toss for one reason : to ensure it goes smoothly and fairly . It certainly did n't go smoothly because they had to do it twice . Dhoni and Jeff Crowe did not hear what Sangakkara called . Crowe should have done a better job and ensured Sangakkara 's call before Dhoni tossed the coin . Dhoni was there on behalf of his team trying to win the most important match for all of India . He should have made sure he heard the call . Dhoni let India down and Crowe let cricket down . That would have been a big story if India had lost the game . After Mahela Jayawardene 's hundred , that looked likely . It was a wonderful milestone but , quite frankly , he did not have to play a shot in anger until he was in his 80s . The pitch was good and all he had to do was steer the ball , angle and caress it , because much of the bowling was ineffective and lacked penetration . India gave one of their poorest bowling displays of the tournament but their best fielding . To play Sreesanth , who had n't bowled for six weeks since the first match of the tournament , was a hell of a gamble . When he did bowl in that first game he was absolute rubbish , spraying it all over the park and got smashed . Zaheer Khan has been one of the best bowlers of the competition but went for 56 in his last five overs by bowling too many length balls . A total of 91 came off the last 10 because India bowled length deliveries . The history of one-day cricket tells you to bowl straight yorkers and I thought Sri Lanka got 25 runs too many but then Dhoni played the innings of his life .
extractive_keyphrases: disappointing sangakkara world cup world cricket final sachin tendulkar toss hundredth hundred ms dhoni sri lanka india muttiah muralitharan story right ineffective victory over sponsors sreesanth tournament captain tendulkar smashed behalf lefthanded marvellous good reward superb effort inform anger billion people happy usual venom sensible decision make straight gamble performance forget competition reason wonderful milestone financial powerhouse hundred yuvraj cricket dhoni decision length ball show penetration team pathetic temperament promote match gautam queuing important poor rubbish steer
abstractive_keyphrases: mahela jayawardenes hundred tournament dhoni lanka cricket television fantastic effort gambhir dhoni india home oneday cricket right hander