The first match of the second edition of the Indian Premier League saw the Mumbai Indians take on last year’s runner-up, the Chennai Super Kings. Chennai won the toss and elected to field first on a Cape Town pitch that was expected to offer some movement off the wicket after dark clouds and intermittent rains had threatened to delay the start of the match if not rain it off entirely. Albie Morkel and Makhaya Ntini were not a part of the match because their kits had failed to arrive in time!
Under very English-like conditions, Sanath Jayasuriya and Sachin Tendulkar opened the inning for the Mumbai Indians but failed to get off to their customary smashing start; the pitch and the tennis ball-like bounce ensuring that the duo was hopping around like a cat on a hot tin roof. Jayasuriya was the first to hit a shot in anger, but then he also tried to hit his Sri Lankan team-mate Thilan Thushara out of the ground, once too often before getting out. Indians were 40/1 at the end of the six-over Power-Play.
Following the dismissal of Jayasuriya, the exchange player for Mumbai, Shikhar Dhawan made his way out to the centre and manipulated the bowling around for singles to give the strike back to his senior partner. Unfortunately, Tendulkar found it difficult to come to terms with the pitch on a more consistent basis and the scoring was not as quick as one expected from a T20 match. Mumbai was 64/1 at the end of the tenth over; when the new 7.5 minute tactic-timeout was called for.
Whatever was called for during the break seemed to have worked as Tendulkar went after Jacob Oram and hit him for a couple of boundaries. Dhawan also hit one to the fence off Manpreet Gony, but perished soon after; top-edging one to skipper Dhoni off the same bowler. New-comer, and the $950,000 costly import J.P.Duminy was the next casualty, getting out almost as soon as he had got in and the recovery was short-lived. Mumbai was 95/3 in the 14th over. Dwayne Bravo left soon after, but it was Abhishek Nayar who not only stemmed the fall of wickets but also exploded by smashing the first three sixes of the match off Flintoff.
Flintoff surprisingly looked out of sorts and the momentum in the Mumbai innings was brought about at his expense. Nayar’s 14-ball 35 propelled the total towards the 166 run-mark while Tendulkar assumed the role of a mentor for the rest of the batsmen to carry his bat for an unbeaten 59. Joginder Sharma’s four overs cost only 25 and he got a wicket, while Gony picked two.
The Super Kings did not have a great start to their innings as opener Parthiv Patel was consumed by Tendulkar off Lasith Malinga, but the Super Kings made up for it with three boundaries of Zaheer Khan. The action heated up further as Hayden was dropped in the third over, but Suresh Raina’s long lay-off from cricket came to haunt him; gone to Bravo for 8.
Andrew Flintoff, who has been a tad out of form with the bat, joined Hayden and duo took the score from 18/2 to 70 before Harbhajan Singh had him caught and bowled. Flintoff’s 24 consisted of a couple of boundaries and a six off Bravo.
At the tactic-break, the Super Kings were 70/3, still needing 97 runs to win off the last ten overs. Hayden was looking dangerous at this stage, but wasn’t able to get Harbhajan away for too many. He did smash a six in the end, but was beautifully caught by Zaheer Khan off part-time bowler Jayasuriya. Oram was the next in, but he has been out of cricket for some time and didn’t last too long where as his replacement S. Badrinath also perished while trying to smash the ball over the fence. The Super Kings required 57 off 27, but had only four wickets remaining at this stage and they needed a miracle to win from this situation.
A thirteen-run over was followed by eight runs off Bravo’s 18th, making the equation turn in Mumbai’s favour as 31 runs were needed off 12 deliveries, with Dhoni the only recognised batsman at crease, along with his lucky-mascot Joginder Sharma. However, a couple of great overs by Zaheer and Malinga (4-0-15-3) sounded the death-knell for the Super Kings and Mumbai won by 19 runs in the end.
Sachin Tendulkar won the Man-of-the-Match award for his excellent half-century and a catch.