10 years of 2011 World Cup win: We wanted to win for Sachin Tendulkar, says Yuvraj Singh

India are celebrating the 10th anniversary of their second World Cup win in 2011 on Friday (April 2) and one of the heroes of the triumph, Yuvraj Singh, dedicated the win to Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar. The 2011 World Cup Player of the Tournament, Yuvraj, revealed in a video message on Friday that Team India was desperate to win the title for Tendulkar – who was playing in his last 50-over World Cup.

“It’s been 10 years since the last World Cup, time has gone by so quickly. The whole team wanted to win the World Cup so badly, especially for Sachin because we knew it was his last World Cup,” Yuvraj Singh said in a video posted on his social media handle.

The message came on a day when Tendulkar informed his fans that he is being hospitalized to get treatment for COVID-19. The former India captain had tested positive last week.

“It is very emotional and great day for us – 10 years of our World Cup win. I wanted to do this video with all my teammates, unfortunately Sachin, Yusuf and Irfan tested COVID-19, wish them great recovery soon,” Yuvraj, who was also a part of the India Legends squad at the Road Safety World Series where three other cricketers apart from Tendulkar tested positive, said.

April 2, 2011 - a day when history was created! We wanted to win the WC for India & for the master @sachin_rt who carried the nation's expectations over decades!

Indebted to be able to represent India & bring glory to our nation #AlwaysBleedBlue #WC2011 @ICC @BCCI pic.twitter.com/kCR7pTL6Bx

— Yuvraj Singh (@YUVSTRONG12) April 2, 2021

Yuvraj was the Player of the Tournament in the 2011 World Cup, scoring 362 runs and picked up 15 wickets with his left-arm spin.

“We wanted to win the World Cup at home – which no other country had managed to do in the past. It was really special for us and I can’t put it in words because those emotions can’t be expressed. There were couple of great individual performances like MS Dhoni in final, Gautam Gambhir throughout the tournament, Sehwag with some great opening partnerships with Sachin Tendulkar, Sachin was great throughout the whole journey, Zak (Zaheer Khan) took about 20 wickets and always got us the breakthroughs, I also managed to perform a little bit,” the Punjab southpaw said.

“Winning World Cup is a special moment for every cricketer, when you play for India and win the World Cup, it’s eternal and it can’t be bigger than that,” Yuvraj, who was diagnosed with Cancer immediately after the World Cup win, added.