Indians reach final
October 09, 2011 11:21:40 UK
Mumbai Indians reached the Nokia Champions League Final after defeating Somerset by ten runs.
Harbhajan Singh captained Mumbai to victory.Harbhajan Singh has often appeared to be fragile under pressure but Saturday may have been the day that he put all that behind him.
Thrust into the captaincy by the injury to Sachin Tendulkar, Harbhajan had to make several key decsions to enable his side to overcome Somerset, with his first been the recall of Surykumar Yadav.
The young batsman had scored 25 runs in his three previous T20 matches and had not played since March.
Yadav scored 23 not out in a vital unbroken stand of 43 with Rajagopal Sathish who hit 25.
The return of Yadav meant Indians could only play four overseas players so picking wisely was vital.
Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds was left out and it proved to be the correct call. Aiden Blizzard opened the batting and hit 54, while Kieron Pollard thumped 24 and took 2-10 against his old team mates.
James Franklin missed out with the bat as Indians posted a respectable total of 160.
Franklin and the other overseas star Lasith Malinga would come into their own as Somerset appeared likely to pass the their target.
Franklin was called upon to bowl the 19th over and kept the runs down and then removed Craig Keiswetter for 62 as the opener was steering his side home.
Malinga who had won two early games with the bat had removed Peter Trego for a duck and Roelof van der Merwe in his opening two overs and added Nick Compton and Murali Kartik, who were both clean bowled in the final over.
His figures of 4-20 once more proved he is the outstanding bowler in T20 and his earlier batting heroics point to him being the most valuable player.
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Mumbai now meet Royal Challengers Bangalore in the final, and are rated as 2.10 to claim victory. Bangalore are 1.72.
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