In truth the World Cup was a mostly disappointing and overlong affair, but the final itself proved a memorable one.
In front of a fanatical home Mumbai crowd and fresh from beating bitter rivals Pakistan and holders Australia in the semi and quarter finals respectively, the whole of India was confident of victory.
However, a brilliant hundred from Mahela Jayawardene took Sri Lanka to 274 and when Lasith Malinga struck early to remove Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tedulkar, it all looked to be going wrong.
But after Gautam Gambhir and Virat Kohli had steadied the ship, captain MS Dhoni arrived to apply the coup de grace.
From a personal viewpoint his World Cup had been a disappointment, but despite being in woeful form with the bat he promoted himself above man of the tournament Yuvraj Singh to take the challenge of of a tight run-chase head on.
And as he has so often before and since, Dhoni timed the chase to absolute perfection and finished the match in the best way possible with a glorious straight six off Nuwan Kulasekara. Cue thunderous celebrations and immortality.
Where next?
Mahendra Singh Dhoni - A born leader
Mahendra Singh Dhoni is the King of Cool
The renaissance of Yuvraj Singh
Read all our 2011 World Cup posts here
Our best XI of the 2011 World Cup
Check out all our Reverse Sweep cricket heroes and zeroes
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