Mumbai Indians beat Rajasthan Royals by 37 runs and became the first team in IPL- 3 to advance to the IPL semi-finals. Rajasthan Royals won the toss and opted to field at the Sawai Man Singh Stadium, Jaipur on Sunday. Mumbai Indians opened the innings with Sachin Tendulkar and Sanath Jaisurya. Jayasurya was out after scoring 1 run and Rayudu also went back to the pavillion for a
Sachin Tendulkar
duck.
Sachin was involved in two important partnerships with JP Duminy and Kieron Pollard to bring his teams total to a respectable semblance. Duminy scored 31 runs hitting four fours in the process and Pollard scored 25 with 3 fours and a six.
Tewary had contributed 15 runs which included four hits to the boundry. Rayudu got a thick edge off his glove off Shane Watson and nicked it to Naman Ojha. Mumbai Indians managed to score 65 runs of the last 5 overs. Even after having losing three wickets earlier, Sachin ensured to post a decent total of 174 on board.
Sachin Tendulkar scored a 1000 runs in IPL and has become the highest run getter.
For the Rajasthan Royals Shane Watson got 3 wickets for 37 runs, Dole 1 for 34 and Trivedi 1 for 35.
There were some fielding lapses also on the part of the Rajasthan Royals. They could have contained the Mumbai team in a much less score. Pollard could have been run out and Siddharth Trivedi could have had caught Tendulkar by Dole at fine leg. But today that was not to be.
Rajasthan Royals managed to score only 137 for 8 in the allotted 20 overs. Fazal and Watson were run out in quick succession. Rajasthan team never appeared to be aware of the target they were chasing and kept on losing wickets regularly. Jhunjhunwala scored 22 which was punctuated with one six and Voges contributed 28 runs with 2 fours to his credit.
Zaheer Khan took 2 for 17 in 4 overs. Kulkarni, Harbhajan and Pollard took 1 wicket each.
Sachin Tendulkar was named the Man of the match.
Ravi Matah.