Chennai crowned IPL champions for 2010
The Mumbai Indians dominated the IPL for the majority of the competition’s third season, but finished 22 runs short of winning the final against the Chennai Super Kings yesterday.
After setting a testing 169-run target for Mumbai, Chennai applied the squeeze on the opposition batsmen as they struggled to cap what had been a dominant season in front of their home crowd in the one match that really counted.
And as the pundits sit down to contemplate where it all went wrong for Mumbai, they will surely keep arriving back at one question: why wasn’t Kieron Pollard sent in to bat while there was still a reasonable hope of salvaging the match?
The news was good for Mumbai at the beginning of the final, with captain Sachin Tendulkar included in the playing XI after splitting the webbing in his hand while attempting a catch in the semi-finals.
However, his Chennai counterpart MS Dhoni began the day on a winning note when the toss fell his way and the wicketkeeper/batsman elected to bat first.
While openers Murali Vijay (26 from 19) and Matthew Hayden (17 from 31) didn’t produce game changing innings, when Vijay fell in the eighth over No.3 batsman Suresh Raina set about tearing the game apart with a knock that would ultimately see the left-hander awarded player of the match honours.
Raina plundered an unbeaten 57 from 35 deliveries, assisted by two dropped catches by the Mumbai fielders, in an innings that included three fours and three sixes.
By the middle of the innings, however, CSK appeared for all intents and purposes to be on their way to setting just a modest target for their top-of-the-table opponents, but importantly had wickets in hand when Dhoni joined Raina in the middle. That partnership was the spark that ignited Chennai’s innings and after the batsmen had racked up 100 runs in the final eight overs, Dhoni’s side ultimately finished with a healthy total of 168-5.
Tendulkar, with R Ashwin, opened the batting for Mumbai but it was slow going early on for the favourites as they crept along to 21-1 after five overs (Ashwin had been dismissed for a duck in the second over after soaking up eight valuable balls), and 51-1 after 10 overs of the innings had been bowled.
As the final began to tilt in favour of Chennai, the obvious answer for Mumbai would have been to send in a proven match-winner in Pollard to get the match back on an even keel. Instead, when Abhishek Nayar (27 from 26 balls) was run out in the 12th over they decided to insert an element of surprise into their batting line-up and send Harbhajan Singh in at No. 4.
It was a short-lived experiment, with the spinner back on the bench after just one run and two deliveries. Time to send in the big West Indian to muscle his way to some quick runs then? No.
First came Ambati Rayudu (21 from 14), then when Tendulkar (48 from 45) was caught while trying to lift the run-rate, Saurabh Tiwary (zero from two) was sent out to the middle. He was followed by JP Duminy (six from seven) before finally at 6-114 and with just three overs remaining Pollard finally made his way to the crease.
The all-rounder immediately set about attempting the daunting task that by then awaited him: winning the match off his own bat with 55 runs needed from just 18 balls. Pollard smashed 22 from Doug Bollinger in the 18th over, and suddenly the Mumbai fans had reason to hope.
But with Rayudu on strike for the opening two deliveries of the penultimate over of the match, that hope was dampened and when Hayden took a low catch to dismiss Pollard (27 from 10) on the last ball of the over the celebrations could begin for Chennai.
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