MUMBAI: Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s famous 2011 World Cup-winning six, etched in the memory of all Indian
cricket fans, is set to find its permanent place in the Wankhede Stadium.
At a meeting of its Apex Council on Monday, the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) decided to make a ‘memorial’ at the spot in the stands behind long-on, where the ball fell after Dhoni hit Sri Lankan pacer Nuwan Kulasekara for the maximum to seal India’s triumph on April 2, 2011.
The MCA will also felicitate the legendary India captain on Saturday when the Mumbai Indians play Chennai Super Kings at the Wankhede in an IPL 2023 game.
“We are planning to make a small memorial at the spot where Dhoni’s 2011 World Cup-winning six landed. No one knows the exact seat where that shot landed, so we’ll maybe block 3-4 seats in that ‘tentative area’in the stands permanently for the memorial. We’ve a design and a structure in mind and it should be ready by the time we host the ODI World Cup in October-November. The idea was proposed by me, seconded by Ajinkya Naik (MCA secretary) and passed by the Apex Council. We will finalise everything soon,” MCA president Amol Kale told TOI.
“We’re also planning to felicitate Dhoni by presenting a memento to him on Sunday, when MI play CSK,” Kale added.
The idea was first mooted by Naik in August 2020.
Stadiums in India and around the world have dedicated stands in the names of legends. The Wankhede Stadium has stands named after Sunil Gavaskar, Vijay Merchant and Sachin Tendulkar, whose life-sized statue too is set to come up in the premises of the venue. Dhoni also has an entire pavilion named after him at Jharkhand State Cricket Association (JSCA) stadium in Ranchi. This will, however, be the first time that a memorial has been built for a person for a specific shot that he/she hit.
New Zealand Cricket honoured Grand Elliot by naming a seat after him at the Eden Park in Auckland, where the South Africa-born hit a six off Dale Steyn to help secure Black Caps’ first-ever World Cup final appearance in 2015. In Australia, a seat was painted yellow at the famed Melbourne Cricket Ground in 1993 to commemorate Simon O’Donnell’s 122-metre six for Victoria over New South Wales.
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