This season’s Champions League final will be an all Indian Premier League (IPL) affair, after Mumbai Indians overcame the serious threat of Trinidad and Tobago in the second semi-final. Mumbai, the current IPL champions, will be contesting a second final in three years.
After T&T set a middling sort of total, with 153-5, Dwayne Smith and Sachin Tendulkar, who was potentially playing his last ever T20 match, set Mumbai on course for victory, with a red hot start to their sides innings.
Smith smashed 59 from 38, and the pair added 90 in just 11 overs, to set the platform for victory. Even though the pair fell in the space of an over, the damage to T&T’s hopes had already been done. The middle order was then able to play out the dangerous, and potential match winner, Sunil Narine, before going on to complete what had become a routine victory.
Nathan Coulter-Nile had been the pick of the Mumbai bowlers, who themselves had been given a scintillating start by Evin Lewis, who blasted 62 from 46 balls. Coulter-Nile bowled his four overs at a cost of just 20 runs, and took one wicket for good measure.
He was well supported by Kieron Pollard and Pragyan Ojha, who also took a wicket a piece, and conceded less than a run a ball.
While Smith started his assault from the second ball, the out of form Tendulkar, scored just three runs from his first seven balls. Having played himself in, Tendulkar then joined the onslaught, and the pair took 49 from the PowerPlay.
As the pair took the game firmly away from the men from the Caribbean, Tendulkar pasted the amazing milestone of a 50,000-run aggregate for recognised cricket across all formats of the game.
Tendulkar was eventually caught behind for 35 from 31, and with Narine striking twice in the next over, for the only time T&T had a chance. But with Mumbai needing only 58 runs from the last eight overs, they didn’t need to take un-necessary risks, and with Dinesh Karthik’s scoring an unbeaten 33, they were able to ease their way towards victory.