MI lose cool, top spot

The game had meandered along at a stodgy pace till then. The Deccan Chargers batsmen had scored at less than run-a-ball and looked quite abject at times against the steady Mumbai Indians bowling — especially opener Sunny Sohal, who handled the short-pitched deliveries as if he had never faced them before. And for the umpteenth time in IPL IV, Mumbai looked to be bossing a game at the Wankhede Stadium as Munaf Patel prepared to bowl the final over of Deccan’s innings. 

But it took less than five minutes, a serious exchange of words and an unexpected moment of indiscretion on the part of the generally cool-headed Munaf for the match to come alive. Shikhar Dhawan, surprisingly batting at No.7 despite the Deccan top-order’s incessant travails, hit the first ball of the over for six. Amit Mishra then top-edged a short delivery for a fluky boundary towards fine-leg while Dhawan riled Munaf up with a few jibes. By the time, Mishra smashed Munaf’s next two deliveries towards the fence before running into the bowler, the mercury-levels in the middle had risen and all hell had broken loose. 


Following a heated exchange and a lot of gesticulating with their hands, the situation just looked to be going out of hand, as Mishra — though not ala Javed Miandad — approached the bowler with bat in hand. Mishra smashed the final ball, a harmless full-toss over mid-wicket for his fourth consecutive boundary, as the Chargers surged towards a total of 135 with 23 coming off the final over. It was apparent in the first over itself that the spin bowlers would have a big say in the final outcome of the match. 

Duminy’s fourth delivery spun viciously past Aiden Blizzard’s off-stump and the wicket-keeper for four byes before the South African trapped the Mumbai opener in his second over to finish his opening spell with figures of 1/3. It was Ishant Sharma, however, who broke the back of the Mumbai batting, first getting rid of the in-form Ambati Rayudu. The tall pacer then won the battle of the Sharmas, by getting rid of Rohit with a splendid out-swinger. And in not too dissimilar fashion to the visitors, Mumbai too crawled to 49/3 at the end of their 10th over. 

RAJAN THE SHARP-SHOOTER
 
Tendulkar continued to wage on as wickets fell at the other end and the Deccan spinners tightened the noose around the hosts. Suman’s two sixes did bring some hope. The man who dealt the body-blows in the end though was the unknown and unheralded Madhya Pradesh seamer Anand Rajan. He dismissed both Tendulkar and Suman in his third over to leave Mumbai’s hopes dangling on Kieron Pollard’s mighty shoulders. 

And with 26 runs required from the final over, despite Pollard’s presence at the crease, Sangakkara’s decision to hand Rajan the ball didn’t seem an untoward decision. Rajan’s perfect day did seem to receive a serious jolt as Pollard hit him for a mighty six and a four to bring it down to 13 off three. But while the experienced Munaf had lost his cool earlier in the day, the young and inexperienced Rajan kept his nerve to see his team through with a 10-run win.