The glorious uncertainties of T20 cricket are also heavily reliant,
sometimes, on mediocrity. Mumbai Indians were the relieved team at the
end, having, only just, prevented Kings XI Punjab from pulling off a
heist that, had it been achieved, would have left the hosts embarrassed.
Mumbai Indians had no business allowing the game to be decided off the
last ball, after having dismissed a threatening David Miller which left
Kings XI to chase 26 off the final two overs with just one wicket in
hand. Kings XI still needed 17 in the last bowled by Dhawal Kulkarni.
Six out of eight deliveries bowled in that over were full tosses, one of
them was given a no-ball and another should have been - it was clearly
above the waist - but wasn't, neither by Asad Rauf at square leg or AK
Chaudhary at the bowling crease.
Praveen Kumar dispatched a juicy full toss on the pads for six off the
penultimate ball to bring the equation down to five off the last
delivery - also a full toss - but spooned a catch to Sachin Tendulkar.
It completed a nerve-wracking win for the hosts, but left many wondering
what might have been had the umpires, or even Kulkarni, who was
fortunate not to have bowled to a more accomplished batsman, got their
act right. The end had a touch of the bizarre, and was anti-climactic,
as the umpires tried to double-check if the final delivery was a no-ball
as Mumbai celebrated; it turned out to be comfortably below the waist
with Kulkarni's foot well behind the line.
The most relieved of all of Mumbai's players, presumably, will be their
captain Rohit Sharma. At the stroke of the midnight hour, he turned 26,
and it would have been a birthday he wished he would have forgotten had
Kings XI won. All the more because he had played a critical role in
getting Mumbai to 174 after his team's scratchy start, with just 48
coming off the first nine overs. It is not often that Kieron Pollard
plays second fiddle during the death overs of a T20 innings, but
rotating the strike was all he needed to do as Rohit took over the role
of aggressor.
So cleanly did Rohit - who scored his fourth half-century this season -
strike the ball, he cleared the boundary by a distance his unusually
subdued partner today has acquired a reputation to match, albeit with
much lesser effort. During their unbeaten stand of 88, of which 72 were
scored in the last five overs, Pollard scored at less than a run a ball
and hit just one six and a four. At the other end, Rohit looked a figure
of assuredness, though against some insipid Kings XI bowling that
included a spate of extras, full tosses and deliveries bowled down leg.
In the final over of the innings, which went for 27, David Hussey,
captaining in place of a dropped Adam Gilchrist, sinned by bowling
length and was smashed by Rohit for three sixes, one ending in the top
tier behind midwicket, and two fours. Just as some fortune for Mumbai in
the final over of the chase, this too proved decisive.
Kings XI appeared to be in the game even after losing two early wickets
and then Shaun Marsh to a stunning one-handed catch from Pollard on the
long-on boundary. Hussey and David Miller counterattacked, the former
helping snatch 32 in the last two overs of the Powerplay. The
introduction of spin, Harbhajan Singh's miserly spell that included
three wickets, and Hussey's dismissal slowed down the innings
considerably, but Miller continued to give Mumbai a scare with timely
blows over the fence, two of them off Pollard followed by one each off
Mitchell Johnson and Kulkarni. His innings of 56 ended when he struck
Johnson straight to extra cover in the 18th over, but little did anyone
know what was in store.
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