On this day in 2013: Mumbai Indians beat RR to win Champions League
Five-time Indian Premier League (IPL) champions Mumbai Indians also stamped its authority in the now defunct Champions League as they clinched their second title after defeating the Rajasthan Royals in the final match of the competition in 2013.
Talking about the match, the Royals won the toss and had no hesitation in bowling first. MI openers including Dwayne Smith and Sachin Tendulkar gave a decent start to Mumbai, but Sachin was scalped soon. However, Smith continued his good form in the tournament as the right-handed batter scored 44 runs off 39 balls, hitting five boundaries and one six.
After both openers went back to the pavilion, Indian batters Ambati Rayudu and Rohit Sharma formed a strong partnership to apply pressure on the Rajasthan bowlers. While Rayudu played the second fiddle, Rohit went berserk with the bat as the current Indian captain smashed 33 runs off just 14 balls. Rayudu also played well for his 29 runs.
After the fall of both Rayudu and Rohit, the big hitters including Kieron Pollard and Glenn Maxwell took over the innings. Pollard could only manage to score 15 runs, but Maxwell showed his wide range of shots as he smashed 37 runs off just 14 balls. Some late contributions from Dinesh Karthik and Harbhajan Singh meant that MI breached the 200-run mark in its allotted 20 overs.
Chasing a score of 200+ runs, RR batters did not have an ideal start as they lost one of the openers, Kusal Perera, in the first over of the chase. However, Ajinkya Rahane and Sanju Samson formed an excellent partnership as they both went on to complete their respective fifties.
Both Rahane and Samson kept the required run rate in check as they gave an ideal platform to the rest of the batters to win the game. However, after the fall of Samson, the chasing team suffered a horrible collapse as none of the batters apart from Rahane, Samson and Stuart Binny managed to cross the double-digit mark.
In the end, Mumbai went on to win the match comfortably by a margin of 33 runs. Veteran spinner Harbhajan Singh was adjudged player of the match for his excellent four-wicket haul. Dwayne Smith was adjudged player of the series for making 223 runs in the competition as MI lifted its second Champions League trophy.
