The Rajasthan Royals jarred the hopes of the Mumbai Indians to reach the semi-finals when it beat them in Jaipur on Monday, in their Indian Premier League match. The Rajasthan Royals won the match spectacularly by taking it till the last ball.

 

Playing on its home ground, the Rajasthan Royals needed 15 runs to win in their last over. It did achieve those 15 runs and won the match by five wickets and with this they also continued their unbeaten record at home. Rajasthan has now won 11 games out of the 13 matches. This has in-turn moved their points to 22 while it was Mumbai Indians' seventh defeat in the 13 matches played. They have now lost three matches subsequently, one after other.

 

The Mumbai team set a modest target of 146 for the Rajasthan Royals. But the home team was struggling at 77 for the loss of five wickets after the 12th over. Though batsmen like Kamran Akmal (18), Swapnil Asnodkar (17), Shane Watson (18) and Mohammad Kaif (12) started decently but they all failed to capitalize on their starts. Mumbai, at this stage seemed all set to win the encounter quite easily.

 

However, it was the brave efforts of Ravindra Jadeja (23 not out) and Niraj Patel (40 not out) who put on 69 runs for the sixth wicket partnership which made sure that the Rajasthan Royals won this clincher. Earlier in the day Sohail Tanvir picked up 4 wickets for 14 runs and Siddharth Trivedi (2 for 13) made sure that Mumbai Indians were restricted to 145/7.

 

Rajasthan Royals won the toss and elected to field. This turned out to be a good decision as they restricted the Mumbai openers Tendulkar and Jayasurya on a pitch that was quite slow and not easy for the batsmen to score quick runs of. The captain of Mumbai Indians could strike only two fours in his 34 ball stint, scoring 30 runs when he got out in the 13th over. A couple of wickets down, Robin Uthappa also perished while trying to hit some big runs and missed a turning delivery of Warne.

 

Sohail Tanvir on the other hand got Pandey out for 3 runs and also sent Dwayne Smith back to the pavilion for just eight runs in the final over, thus restricting the Mumbai Indians to a shade less than 150 runs.

 

Mumbai Indians: 145/7 (20 Overs)

Rajasthan Royals: 146/5 (20 Overs)

Result: Rajasthan Royals won by 5 wickets
Man of the Match: Sohail Tanvir (Rajasthan Royals)