According to the pitch report that was carried out, it was expected to be a 160-plus wicket. The start that the Trinidad and Tobago side got in the game only confirmed that belief and the Mumbai Indians were looking to restrict the opponents to less than 160 at that stage. The Trinidad and Tobago side were 41 for the wicket of Adrian Barath in only the fifth over at that stage.
So for someone who would have turned the television on and hit the bed, to wake up to Mumbai Indians making a very heavy weather of chasing down 99 would have come across as a shock of humongous proportion. That the Mumbai Indians won the game off the last ball of the match defies belief, especially on such a pitch and in pursuit of such a paltry target.
Trinidad and Tobago’s collapse was brought about by a combination of poor running between the wickets, decent bowling and some extraordinarily rash batting. The second of these factors is understandable but to have Lendl Simmons being run out the way he was – for not grounding the bat – and some of the rest like Barath and Darren Bravo attempting to bludgeon the bowling off in the way they did, was surprising.
A target of 99 should have been a cakewalk. There cannot be any explanation to the way Mumbai Indians went about their business, except that the Trinidad and Tobago bowlers were throwing hand-grenades at the batsmen. And given that there was no such news reported, the only other factor that could explain the issue is that the Mumbai batsmen panicked.
It would be difficult to blame the Mumbai batsmen. They are without most of their experienced guys and to add to that, the form of the likes of Andrew Symonds and James Franklin isn’t much to write home about given their rustiness.
And yet, Harbhajan Singh seemed to have hit the nail on the head, when he said that his team did not deserve to win and that if his batsmen continued to bat the way they were, they would soon be going back home.
For now though, the Mumbai Indians are the only side in the group to have two wins from the two games they have played. One of the matches was against Chennai Super Kings, arguably the best team in the group, which means that even if the Mumbai Indians win one of the remaining two games – against New South Wales and the Cobras – they can hope to go through to the semi-finals. And given the team they have, if it does happen, it will be nothing short of a miracle.