CLT20: Harbhajan Singh delivers Mumbai Indians the Champions League trophy

Harbhajan Singh picked up the wickets of Shane Watson, Ajinkya Rahane, Stuart Binny and Kevon Cooper to win the match for Mumbai Indians

Mumbai Indians defeated Rajasthan Royals by a margin of 33 runs at the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium in Delhi to be crowned as champions for the second time in the history of Champions League T20.

Chasing an improbable 203 to win, in the absence of Brad Hodge and with Shane Watson not firing on all cylinders, no one would have given a chance to the Royals’ to get past the line.

To make things worse, they lost Kushal Perera in the very first over to a run out, in a mix-up with Ajinkya Rahane. Sanju Samson, coming in at number 3, and Rahane had other ideas though. The pair put together a spectacular 109-run partnership in 11.1 overs.

As the partnership progressed, Samson looked like running out of steam after scoring 60 off 32 balls. Only 27 runs had come off the last 23 balls. The pressure was evident as Royals lost a cluster of wickets including the well-set Samson and Rahane (65 off 47). Harbhajan picked up Watson and followed up with three more wickets in his next over to successfully end any hopes of Royals chasing the total down.

With 48 required off 24 deliveries, the eventful 17th over bowled by Harbhajan Singh saw Rahane hit a juicy fulltoss to the fielder at deep-midwicket, Binny cleaned up while attempting an wild slog across the wicket and Cooper stumped. Pollard cleaned up the tail by picking up three wickets in the penultimate over to complete the match.

Earlier in the evening, put into bat first, Mumbai Indians lost Sachin Tendulkar for 15 runs. Tendulkar, who played his last T20 match ever, saw his woodwork disturbed while attempting a drive of Shane Watson. Despite the presence of Dwayne Smith in the middle, the first ten overs of the innings was sedate.

Dwayne Smith started the counterattack with a hat-trick of fours against Watson. Tambe struck back with a couple of wickets, of that of Smith (44 off 39) and Ambati Rayudu (29 off 24). Both the batsmen were bowled, the former while attempting a wild slog towards midwicket and the latter while charging down to a flatter delivery.

Rajasthan Royals’ bowlers hardly gave anything away and it required something special from Mumbai Indians to turn the tide. What followed was indeed special! The fact that Kieron Pollard was not involved it made it even more extraordinary.

Rohit Sharma (33 off 14) and Glenn Maxwell (37 off 14) massacred a hapless looking Royals’ bowling attack and plundered 121 runs of the last 8 overs. Amidst all these, the fact that Tambe had figures of 4-0-19-2 speaks volumes.