Champions League T20: Rajasthan Royals vs Mumbai Indians - Match Review

Rohit Sharma was involved in a disastrous run-out

Mumbai Indians and the Rajasthan Royals locked horns in the first proper group stage fixture of the CLT20 2013 after the qualifying games saw Sunrisers Hyderabad and Otago Volts make it through to group ‘B’ and group ‘A’ respectively.

Mumbai Indians went into the game on the back of IPL success, but the absence of Malinga in the bowling line-up was always going to be a problem for them. On the other hand, the home team, Rajasthan Royals, had won all their eight home games at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur in the last IPL season, and knew the ground better than anybody else.

Just to test the patience of any cricket follower, the rain gods had to play their part in delaying the start of the game to 8.15 PM, and the state of the surface became a talking point having been under the covers for a good part of two hours. To everybody’s surprise, the wicket had more than a decent covering of grass to catch the eye of fast bowlers on show last night. Right through the IPL, Jaipur was always a difficult ground to defend on, the wicket was more batsmen friendly, and encouraged stroke play by and large, but yesterday it was anything but a good batting wicket.

The toss was always going to be crucial and the captain winning the toss would have wanted to bowl first. Rahul Dravid called correctly and unsurprisingly chose to field first, having gone into the game without a regular spinner. The side picked for the game had a well balanced look to it with five proper batsmen, Watson and Binny being the two all-rounders, and four bowlers. Mumbai Indians too had no real surprises on the team sheet, with Nathan Coulter-Nile coming in for Lasith Malinga and the rest of the side remaining the same.

Dwayne Smith opened along with Tendulkar and Dravid took everyone off guard by throwing the ball to Ashok Menaria, a slow left arm orthodox bowler in the very first over of the innings. With a lot of grass on the wicket, there was no way Menaria could extract turn out of the surface, and both Tendulkar and Smith got through the first over with relative ease.

Mumbai Indians needed a good start to set the tone for the rest of the game, but the two paced nature of the wicket had Smith playing across the line to a Vikramjeet Malik delivery, which pitched short of a length, kept low and struck him on the inside part of his back leg, and it was difficult for Smith to persuade the umpire to give second thought to the decision.

In walked Dinesh Karthik, who wasn’t at his attacking best, leaving a lot of balls outside off stump and as time rolled on, a false shot seemed inevitable. In the last over of the power-play, Karthik walked down the pitch to Vikramjeet Malik and inside edged a length delivery back on to his off stump, and Mumbai couldn’t have got off to a worse start.

While all this was happening, Tendulkar focused on getting himself in and was playing some good drives off the front foot. His foot movement was good until Binny came into bowl in the eighth over of the innings and shaped the ball away from Tendulkar, who didn’t get his foot towards the pitch of the ball and edged it to Samson.

Kieron Pollard

A lack of common sense from Rayudu and Rohit led to a disastrous mix-up which saw both batsmen stranded on one side of the wicket, and thankfully for the Mumbai Indians, Rohit Sharma didn’t move out of his crease while Rayudu was running to his end, and MI were reduced to 43/4 with Pollard joining Rohit in the middle. The pair resurrected the innings and stitched together a 52-run stand before Rohit Sharma edged Watson’s leg-cutter to Samson, just when he was starting to look good and give impetus to the Mumbai innings.

Pollard did his usual best of launching some heavyweight blows into the stands in the last few overs of the MI innings, and a total of about 130 and thereabouts looked possible. Pollard was dismissed the first ball of the 20th over, when the scorecard read 130/6. Nathan Coulter-Nile walked in and got 12 crucial runs, which pushed the MI total to 142/7.

A target of 143 gave the bowling side a ray of hope, but a couple of early wickets was needed from MI’s perspective to create a sense of panic in the RR camp. Rahul Dravid and Ajinkya Rahane have been reliable openers for RR for the best part of IPL 5 & 6, and it was imperative for MI bowlers to dislodge the pair as quickly as they could.

In the second over of the RR innings, Dravid played an uppish cut to a ball that was going away from him, only to give a simple catch to Pollard at backward point. Just for a moment, it felt as though the match had come alive.

In walked the 18 year old prodigy from Kerala, Sanju Samson. Johnson had caused the likes of Badrinath and Finch serious problems with his in-swinger during IPL 6, and was trying hard to get it working again. In the third over of the RR innings, Johnson brought the ball back into Samson with pace and hit him well in line with middle stump and he looked a ‘Dead Duck’, but umpire Bruce Oxenford had other LBW rules in his mind and Johnson was denied for his prowess, and from that point, it looked like destiny had eluded Johnson for making any kind of an inroad into the RR batting line-up to give MI a chance to claw their way back into the game.

Samson redeemed himself and was starting to open up and play freely. At one point, it was hard to not think of the difference Malinga would have made in the bowling attack, which lacked bite. A 74-run stand for the second wicket between Rahane & Samson at a good rate to the over meant it was more a case of RR losing it than MI forcing the issue and pulling a hat out of the bag. At 79/2, Rahane tried to heave Rishi Dhawan’s delivery over mid-wicket, only to chop it back on to his stumps.

The spin duo of Ojha and Harbhajan didn’t have a lot of inspiration from the surface, but it looked like their bowling lacked inspiration than the nature of wicket in itself. Harbhajan just reminded everybody of where he stands in terms of his bowling, which is starting to look really awful. There was not a single delivery that drew the batsmen forward and the likes of Rahane and Samson were milking him with utmost disdain. Ojha didn’t promise much either, and his quota for the day was restricted to just one over.

At 79/2 in the 12th over, you’d have thought another couple of wickets was the need of the hour for MI to make a match out of it, but Samson and the hard-hitting Watson hardly seemed to be in a mood to create any kind of a drama. A 28-run stand between Samson and Watson ensured RR got within striking distance with a lot more overs to spare and MI’s hopes started to fade.

The dismissal of Samson in the 16th over didn’t make any difference to the game as it was well and truly won as far as RR were concerned, and Stuart Binny, who joined Watson in the middle, ensured that there was no further damage and won it by seven wickets with a couple of balls to spare.

RR sent out a stern warning to their detractors with the kind of depth they possess in their squad and the advantage of playing all their games in Jaipur.

Mumbai Indians have a lot of work to do on the batting front, and they badly need their star studded batting line-up to fire, if they have to qualify for the knock-out stages.