Mumbai Indians lifts their second Champions League Twenty20 trophy

The year 2013 was probably the most successful year for Mumbai Indians (MI), as they won their first Indian Premier League title and following that they also won the Champions League Twenty20 (T20) for the second time.

The year 2013 was probably the most successful year for Mumbai Indians (MI), as they won their first Indian Premier League title and following that they also won the Champions League Twenty20 (T20) for the second time.

The interesting part is that both teams — Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals (RR) played their first and last matches of the tournament against each other. It was a neutral venue for both teams as they were playing at Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi. For both teams the tournament was one of the most memorable one as two Indian legends — Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid — were seen playing their last T20 cricket. Despite Rohit Sharma being MI captain, the final was labelled Tendulkar vs Dravid.

Dravid invited MI to bat first. Dwayne Smith and Tendulkar got MI off to a good start before Rohit plundered 33 off 14 balls with 3 fours and 2 sixes. Glenn Maxwell then took charge and didn’t let the scoring rate go down by hammering 37 off 14 with 4 fours and 2 sixes in the death overs. MI posted a mammoth 202 on board. Pravin Tambe was the only RR bowler with some impact (4-0-19-2).

It was certainly a difficult target for RR, but their batting had the fire power to chase down the total. RR didn’t had a good start as Kusal Perera got out in the first over, but in-form batsmen Ajinkya Rahane and Sanju Samson got together, not letting the asking rate to mount.

Suddenly the target seemed easy — before Samson fell on 117. It was the 12th over of the innings. RR then lost wickets at rregular intervals and were bowled out for 169. Harbhajan Singh was named Man of the Match: he brought MI back in the match by taking 3 key wickets — Rahane, Shane Watson and Stuart Binny. Dwayne Smith was named Player of the Tournament.