Champions League Twenty20: Five thrilling finishes

Harbhajan Singh

1. Mumbai Indians v/s T&T (Bangalore, September 26, 2011)

To put it in easy terms – neither side deserved to win this game. It was a horrendous display of batting from both Mumbai and T&T; neither reached the 100-run mark, yet the RIL-owned team somehow won the match off the last ball, with just one wicket left in the tank.

Captain Harbhajan Singh led from the front after T&T chose to bat first. His side were outstanding in the field, and bolstered by their skipper’s three-wicket haul, completely demolished the rival batsmen, and only Jason Mohammed & Lendl Simmons came away with some runs to their names. With the kind of firepower Mumbai possessed, the spectators would have been forgiven for assuming that the match would end early.

Ravi Rampaul didn’t think so. He unleashed a devastating spell of pace and bounce, making life difficult for the Blue squad. Like Harbhajan, Rampaul also had three victims, but his colleagues at the other end continued to give away runs – not that many were scored.

One by one, MI’s batsmen committed hara-kiri. Only Ambati Rayudu managed a respectable knock, but he, too, was run out on the penultimate delivery of the match, with his side needing two more to win. Lasith Malinga proved to be the surprise package, relieving some of the pressure with two good hits before also succumbing to the same fate as Rayudu; T&T were almost home.

And then T&T captain Darren Ganga made a huge blunder. He moved the field back, trying to end the game in a tie. Yuzvendra Chahal, the last man, received a full toss on the pads, and pushed it away to mid-wicket. The throw from the deep wasn’t the quickest, but Denesh Ramdin had plenty of time to complete the run-out, as Chahal charged back for the second.

In what can only be described as a ‘brain-freeze’, Ramdin chose to send in an under-arm throw from a few yards, and missed. MI thus won a game they should have lost, while T&T lost a game they should have won. The crowd, though, got their money’s worth.