4 underrated knocks in the history of World Cup finals

1) Gautam Gambhir in 2011

To describe India's 2011 World Cup triumph without mentioning how Gambhir was robbed of attention for one of the all-time great knocks, would be a cosmic insult.

The 2011 edition of the tournament was a two-month festival in India. Everywhere the team went, everybody had one thing to say to them "You must win it this time, at least for Sachin".

For the finals, Wankhede was jam-packed. Sri Lankan skipper Kumar Sangakkara won the toss and elected to bat first. Indians started well, but their joy was short-lived, as Mahela Jayawardhane produced one of the all-time great centuries 103*(88) in a World Cup final. India were set a target of 275 to lift the trophy.

At the interval, every Indian feared that 2003 would repeat again. When India came out to bat in the second innings, the whole nation had their eyes focussed on the run chase. To everyone's surprise, India got off to a terrible start. Within 10 overs, they had Sehwag and their beloved Sachin Tendulkar back in the hut.

But, as Bruce Lee once said " in the middle of chaos, lies opportunity", it was an opportunity for any one of the middle order batsman to become a legend. To get their name in eternal history books.

As it turned out, Gautam Gambhir produced a scintillating inning of 97(122) when it was needed the most. He steadied the innings with Kohli after the early disaster, and after Kohli got out, he took India closer to the winning total with Dhoni.

Although Gambhir's inning was the defining knock of the final, his innings got covered under the weight of MS Dhoni's inning, who played a brilliant knock of 91(79) which included 2 sixes, one of them was that match finishing six which got registered for timelessness.

For a country that celebrates their cricketing heroes, Dhoni became one that night. Even though Gambhir's knock was one of the most defining knocks in Indian cricket history, it will remain under the shadow of Dhoni's heroics. Gambhir's knock will probably go down as one of the most underrated knocks of all time.