ICC World Cup 2011 | Yuvraj Singh gave us that balance of the fifth bowler, reveals Zaheer Khan

"Yuvi was superb right through the World Cup. He was almost able to bowl his quota of overs throughout the tournament. He gave us that balance of the fifth bowler we used to always talk about and also provided an overall balance to the playing 11. It was a great batting wicket. It was a typical Mumbai, Wankhede high-scoring pitch. It was just that we were able to keep the pressure on the Sri Lankans till the 40th over. That was the gist of that fact. They were scoring at four and a half runs an over," Zaheer told Sportstar.

For Zaheer, it was his second final appearance after his failure in the 2003 World Cup. The pressure was also enormous to perform after the way India crashed out of the 2007 World Cup, with an embarrassing loss to Bangladesh in the tournament opener, but it was also their best shot to win the tournament. Zaheer mentioned that controlling those raw emotions and not getting overwhelmed by the occasion was the major takeaway for him from the South Africa edition and the team applied the same really well.

"It will be huge, you know. It's not happened since '83. The country is going to go crazy and everyone is expecting us to win. So all those kinds of things also put you under pressure. When you do something wrong or if you don't get the rhythm going then comes the pressure of what is going to happen if we lose. So I think it's a pendulum swing between that and the only way to stop it is by staying in the present. You've to be able to block yourself out from these thoughts. If you are staying in the present and just observing what the game is, and just reacting to that, these things get simpler. I think that was the experience and learning of 2003 that I applied to 2011," the Mumbai pacer concluded.