The semi-final hopes of the Mumbai Indians suffered a jolt with the table-toppers Rajasthan Royals scoring a spectacular last ball win in their Indian Premier League match in Jaipur on Monday.
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The home team, needing 15 to win in the final over, got two off the final delivery to cruise home by five wickets and also preserved their unbeaten record at home.
The win was Rajasthan 11th in 13 matches and moved their points tally to 22 while it was Mumbai's seventh defeat in 13 matches, their third straight.
Chasing 146 for a win, the Rajasthan Royals were in dire straits at 77 for five after the 12th over.
Kamran Akmal (18), Swapnil Asnodkar (17), Shane Watson (18) and Mohammad Kaif (12) all failed to convert their starts as Mumbai looked on course to score yet another win over the Rajasthan team (Mumbai had beaten Rajasthan earlier).
But Ravindra Jadeja (23 not out) and Niraj Patel (40 not out) not only put on 69 runs in an unbeaten sixth wicket partnership but ensured their perfect home record was intact in a tense finish. It was Mumbai's third straight defeat in a close match.
Earlier, Sohail Tanvir (4 for 14) and Sidddharth Trivedi (2 for 31) led a disciplined Rajasthan Royals bowling attack and shared the spoils to restrict Mumbai Indians to a modest 145 for 7.
Trivedi accounted for Sachin Tendulkar and Sanath Jayasuriya to put the brakes on Mumbai Indians while Tanvir rocked the visiting middle and lower orders to deny their opponents, who badly need a win to stay afloat, a big total.
Electing to field first, the Rajasthan bowlers tied down the Mumbai openers Tendulkar and Jayasuriya on a slow Sawai Mansingh stadium pitch which was not easy for batsmen to play shots and odd balls keeping low.
It was an unusual sight of two of the best contemporary cricketers having against their names more number of balls than runs and failing to impose themselves on the bowlers in the format considered to be batsman-friendly.
The duo scored just 28 from the first five overs bowled by Sohail Tanvir, Shane Watson and Yusuf Pathan, and 60 at the end of 10th over.
However, thanks to wicketkeeper Yogesh Takawale, who came at number eight and scored an unbeaten eight-ball 24 runs, which included four 4s and a huge six, that the visitors added some more runs to the paltry total.
Jayasuriya opened up in the seventh over off Pankaj Singh by taking 13 runs from it which prompted Shane Warne to introduce himself in the 10th over to the eager anticipation of the huge crowd of a spin champion taking on his old nemesis Tendulkar.
Warne did not have much impact in his first over but the run glut forced the Mumbai opening duo to look for big shots and from one such effort in the 11th over Jayasuriya could not time properly a Siddharth Trivedi delivery to hole out to Pankaj Singh for 38 which the Sri Lankan made off 37 balls with the help of four fours.
Trivedi struck two overs later with Tendulkar offering a return catch to the young bowler and with that Mumbai were dealt a body blow.
The Mumbai captain struck only two fours in his 34-ball 30 and when he departed in the 13th over his side was scoring at a rate of just over six an over.
Two down Robin Uthappa perished for three while trying to accelerate the innings and missed completely a Warne turning ball while charging down and wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal did the rest to give his captain his only wicket of the match for 30 runs.
Miserly Sohail Tanvir then added salt to Mumbai injury by taking two wickets in consecutive balls when he trapped Abhishek Nayar LBW for 25 and dismissed Shaun Pollock for a duck in the 17th over.
Manish Pandey, however, denied Tanvir success from the Pakistani pacers hat-trick ball, his second in the tournament but the damage had already been done with Mumbai reduced to 107 for 5 at the end of 17th over.
A pumped up Tanvir, who has world best Twenty20 figures of 4-0-16-6 in his name in an IPL match at the same ground, had the satisfaction of cleaning up Pandey for 3 and then sending Dwayne Smith to the hut for eight in the penultimate over to restrict the vistors to less than 150.
