Mumbai Indians became the first team to lift the Champions League Twenty20 trophy for the second time as they overcame Rajasthan Royals by 33 runs in a high-scoring final at the Ferozeshah Kotla Stadium in New Delhi on Sunday night.
Mumbai Indians thus joined Chennai Super Kings to win the IPL and the CLT20 in the same year, with the Super Kings having achieved the feat back in 2010. Rohit Sharma, the Mumbai Indians skipper, thus joined Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the elite list of captains to have won both the IPL and the CLT20 titles for their respective teams, that too in the same season.
Had it not been for Harbhajan Singh’s inspired spell late into what looked like a monumental chase by Royals. Despite having been set a gargantuan target of 203, Rajasthan Royals were on course for a better part of the chase, thanks to a second-wicket partnership of 109 runs in no time by Ajinkya Rahane and Sanju Samson.
At 114 for 1 after the 11th over, the Royals were very much in the game. However, in the next over, Pragyan Ojha finally got rid of Samson, who was dropped in the deep in the previous over, with Harbhajan plucking on to a sharp chance at short third-man. Naturally, with new man Shane Watson finding it difficult to time the ball, the scoring rate slowed down in the next couple of overs.
Two balls after Watson smashed Kieron Pollard for a six, he misread a Harbhajan top-spinner in the 15th over and holed out to Pollard at long-on. Still, Rahane and Stuart Binny kept Royals in the game with 48 required off the last four overs.
Following a long conference between some of the key members of the Mumbai Indians outfit, captain Sharma threw the ball to Harbhajan for his last over. And the Turbanator, who had led the Mumbai Indians to the CLT20 triumph in 2011, showed all his experience in what turned out to be a memorable final over of his. Harbhajan got rid of the danger man Rahane off the first ball, then got through Binny’s defence off the fourth and fooling Kevon Cooper off the last ball of the over to take all the zip off the chase.
Eventually, the Royals lost their last seven wickets for just 14 runs in 17 balls to end up far from bidding a perfect farewell to their skipper Rahul Dravid, who demoted him to No 8 in the batting order before falling for one run.
Earlier in the evening, the Mumbai Indians did an astonishing turnaround in the second half of their batting stint to put on a mammoth score of 202 for six. The defending IPL champions were placed at 60 for one at the halfway stage. However, Dwayne Smith then cut loose, hitting Watson for three consecutive boundaries in the next over and the rest of the batsmen continued the onslaught for the rest of the innings. With Sharma and Glenn Maxwell, who came in for Mitchell Johsnon, leading the charge with effortless hitting, Mumbai Indians compiled 142 runs off the last 10 overs and despite no batsman crossing the fifty, ended up putting on a total in excess of 200 runs.
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