Mumbai lose a last ball thriller, need a miracle now by CricketArchive Staff Reporter

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Scorecard:	Rajasthan Royals v Mumbai Indians
Player:	Sohail Tanvir, ST Jayasuriya, SR Tendulkar, NK Patel, Kamran Akmal, RA Jadeja, CRD Fernando
Event:	Indian Premier League 2007/08

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DateLine: 27th May 2008

 

One question that even Sachin Tendulkar had at the post match conference was, ‘what is the recipe for winning such close ones?’ The Mumbai Indians had lost a close match, yet again, and that had dimmed their chances of making it to the semi-finals a great deal. In fact, now they need Chennai to lose their match against the Deccan Chargers, and then win their own game against the Bangalore Royal Challengers.

 

The Mumbai Indians seemed out of the game when Shane Warne won the toss, elected to field, and Mumbai stumbled to 120/7 in 19 overs. The last over from Shane Watson went for twenty five runs and that set up the match nicely, on a pitch where the ball was not coming onto the bat. Earlier, Tendulkar and Sanath Jayasuriya did give the Mumbai teams a steady start, but the run rate was slow, and when they departed, the rest of them fell like a pack of cards. Robin Uthappa failed again, and so did Shaun Pollock, as the Pakistani left-arm seam bowler, Sohail Tanvir tore apart the Mumbai batting with a spell of 4/14 in four overs.

 

Chasing 146 though, was never going to be easy for the Royals and the pitch began to show its true colours. Kamran Akmal got run-out when he did not ground the bat, but the rest just could not get their eye in, as the ball stopped and came on to the bat. In fact at 77/5 in 12 overs, the match looked all over for the Royals. It was here that Niraj Patel and Ravindra Jadeja got together and forged a partnership that was slow to begin with, but gathered momentum later on. 43 were needed off the last three overs, and fifteen in the last, and the duo brought the equation down to 3 in the last. Fernando bowled a wide, but then misfielded a ball off his own bowling that allowed the batsmen to get back for the second, and win it for the Royals.

 

A very disappointed Tendulkar called for some more common sense from his team, while Shane Warne beamed his way to glory. Unsurprisingly, Sohail Tanvir was named the Man-of-the-Match.