It was only natural Mumbai Indians lost in finals

That Mumbai Indians deserved to win the final is a known fact. However, in sport, much like in life, it is almost impossible to equate the two things; and in the end, what matters is results.

That said, it was very evident that Chennai played well enough, but had Mumbai Indians played in the manner that they had in the rest of the tournament, it would not have been easy for the Super Kings. So, where did the Mumbai Indians go wrong?

Toss?
Of course, that cannot be a factor, or can it? While saying that the toss played an important role in Mumbai’s loss, I am not trying to find excuses. It is a rather simple fact of life. In a tournament as long as this, expecting the pitches to remain as good as they had through the first part of the tournament is rather foolhardy. And with the pitches playing, any team batting second would find it difficult to chase; Mumbai or Chennai.

That is precisely what happened, as the Mumbai Indians collapsed to a defeat chasing a big enough total. Three out of the final four games, including the two semi-finals were won by the sides batting first and were one-sided at that.

Dropped catches:
I would have been tempted to add the lbw appeals that went against the Mumbai Indians as well, but to me, it looks like the umpires actually helped the Mumbai team by negating the two of them against Matthew Hayden. Because, till the time he was there, the Chennai Super Kings were actually struggling. And then, he got out!

Talking of the catches, Suresh Raina offered two, rather simple catches and was dropped on both the occasions. Now, Raina is still some way off being a top-notch finisher, but he has the quality nonetheless, to make you pay. And that is exactly what he did! Bye-bye match.

Where/Who was the captain?
That was a captain that at least half of the billion people watching the game had in their mind while the Mumbai Indians batted. The other half was clearly sleeping.

There were many instances of muddled thinking during the entire twenty overs of Mumbai’s innings, and even before that. For one, Abhishek Nayar had no business to bat as high as the number three position, which should have, ideally, gone to either Saurabh Tiwary or Ambati Rayadu, both of whom had done it before in the tournament, and quite well at that. Then again, if he did bat at that number, the acceleration, or at least the attempt at that, should have come much earlier than the tenth over.

The second case in point was that of Harbhajan Singh sent at number four. While I agree that this was a double-edged sword, with a good chance of coming off, what one must remember is that despite how Tiwary has batted in the tournament, he has needed 6-8 balls to get going; something that was crucial at that stage. He was the ideal number four, from where he could have stamped his authority in the later stage.

And then, even without questioning the reasons behind not sending in Kieron Pollard, it ws quite appalling to see JP Duminy bat at the number seven position in the batting. Over Pollard. Made absolutely no sense, given that not in the entire series has he ever given an impression that he can score runs at the 13 runs per over needed at that stage. To me, it was game, set, match to Chennai the moment Duminy walked out to bat.