Riding on Smith-Tendulkar’s 90-run opening stand, MI beat T&T by six wickets
Dwayne Smith helped IPl champions Mumbai Indians beat Trinidad and Tobago to secure a place in second Champions league Twenty20 final in three years here at the Ferozeshah Kotla stadium on Saturday. Mumbai will now face another IPl team Rajasthan Royals in the final on Sunday.
Chasing 154-run target, Smith along with Sachin Tendulkar provided Mumbai the kind of start they needed against T&T, a strong bowling unit. After the duo departed within a space of two balls, middle-order batsmen didn't let the good start go waste and sealed a six-wicket victory with five balls to spare.
After three consecutive flop-shows in the ClT20, Tendulkar (35 off 31 balls) finally came good with bat and along with Dwayne Smith (59 off 38 balls) added 90 runs for the first wicket to lay strong foundation for his team. Along the way, Tendulkar also completed his 50,000 runs, another milestone by the master blaster, in all formats of cricket. His tally now stands at 50,009 from 953 matches.
However, T&T's Sunil Narine, known as mystery spinner in cricketing circles, kind of undid that good work with two wickets in his one over to go with another wicket by lendl Simmons, who dismissed Tendulkar. Mumbai were reduced to 96 for 3 in 12 overs from 90 for no loss in 10.5. In T20 format, the match doesn't take much time to slip away and three wickets in seven balls was a big setback for Mumbai.
But skipper Rohit Sharma and Dinesh Karthik knew the target wasn't very far and a couple of good overs were enough to get there. They added 42 runs in next five overs. Though Rohit was foxed by Narine in the 18th over, by then the match was firmly in Mumbai's grip. Karthik finished the job with six over long-off.
Earlier, T&T posted a decent score which could have been better had other batsmen, apart from Evin lewis and Yannick Ottley, contributed more.
There last match hero, lendl Simmons (0) was a bit unlucky in this match as his cheross-batted shot went straight into the hands of Dwayne Smith, who stood at the boundary edge and waited for the ball to land in his big, safe pair of hands.
His opening partner, lewis, however, didn't show any sign of slowing down in the wake of early loss of wicket. He continued in his belligerent fashion and matched Mitchell Johnson pace with his bat speed accumulating five boundaries, including a six over third man, in Mumbai bowler's two overs.
Mumbai was finding it hard to stop lewis but wickets at regular interval from the other end kept them in the game. After lewis, Ottley did some damage to Mumbai but Nathan Coulter-Nile, Pragyan Ojha and Kieron Pollard bowled intelligently to keep the scoring rate in reach.
Brief scores
Trinidad & Tobago: 153/5 in 20 overs (Evin lewis 62, Yannick Ottley 41 not out; Nathan Coulter-Nile 1/20) lose to Mumbai Indians: 157/4 in 19.1 overs (Dwayne Smith 59, Sachin Tendulkar 35; Sunil Narine 3/17) by 6 wickets.