Rajasthan Edge Chennai in Thrilling Cricket IPL Final

The Rajasthan Royals edged past Chennai Super Kings in the inaugural Indian Premier League Final tonight at Mumbai. Rajasthan, captained by Shane Warne, made Chennai bat after winning the toss. Chennai made 163/5 in their twenty overs and the Royals had to wait till the last ball of their twentieth over to edge the game and finish at 164/7.

Chennai had a brisk start with S. Vidyut and Parthiv Patel getting an opening stand of thirty-nine runs. Suresh Raina then came in and played a very good inning of forty-three runs. Parthiv Patel was the next to depart, with the score at sixty-four runs. Albie Morkel was promoted up the batting order and hit two superb sixes but got caught by Kamran Akmal while attempting a third.

With the score at ninety-five for three, the captain of the Super Kings, MS Dhoni, walked out onto the pitch with a point to prove. Suresh Raina and Dhoni got together and looked threatening before Raina hauled out to long off with Shane Watson picking up yet another wicket in the tournament.The score at that stage was 128 runs.

The Super Kings couldn't gather any momentum in the final few overs but finished off nicely at the end of twenty overs with a competitive 163 runs.

The Royals came out battling with Swapnil Asnodkar playing some characteristically cheeky shots. His partner, Neeraj Patel looked uncomfortable and got battered and bruised by Ntini's body-line bowling. He perished trying a rash shot to Manpreet Gony with the score at nineteen.

Asnodkar and Kamran Akmal fell in the same with Albie Morkel over with Rajasthan in a spot of bother at forty-two for three.

In came Yusuf Pathan, who along with Shane Watson steadied the ship to put on a partnership of sixty-five runs before Watson was bowled by Muralitharan. Yusuf Pathan played some superb shots which included some superb sixes hit off Muthiah Muralitharan.

Mohammad Kaif came in and played a brisk innings of twelve runs off nine balls which included a six off Murali. Ravindra Jadeja then came in and got out off his first ball, leaving Rajasthan at 139/6. Warne walked out and before he could settle, Pathan was run-out by a superb bit of fielding by Raina, who had incidentally dropped Pathan when he was on thirteen.

Pathan had done the damage by then with fifty-three runs.

The match got into a nervy finale with eight runs required off the last over.

L.Balaji, who had been expensive in his three overs had been entrusted with the twentieth over. He bowled a rather unnecessary wide with the batsman running across for an extra to add insult to injury to the Chennai players.

The scores were then level with a ball remaining and Tanvir made contact with the ball and ran home to secure Rajasthan a well-deserved IPL Title.

The Chennai Super Kings played very well, albeit lacked in their fielding due to their second match played in as many days. They were left heartbroken but MS Dhoni staunchly supported his players at the end of the game.

The win meant that Rajasthan Royals won a 1.2 million dollar cash prize, with Chennai getting 600 thousand dollars. The two teams have now qualified for the Champions T-20 which will be held tentatively in September with the top two teams in Australia and England (as of now) also participating in a Champions League format.

Man of the Match : Yusuf Pathan (Rajasthan Royals)

Player of the Tournament : Shane Watson (Rajasthan Royals)

Under-19 player of the Tournament : Sreevats Goswami (RC Bangalore)

Fair Play Award : Chennai Super Kings