Six games into the season and the Mumbai Indians could not find their way through to a victory in the Indian Premier League (IPL). They had lost five of their first six games and, for much of the first two weeks of the season, were bottom of the table.
They turned their season around in a fashion not seen in the eight-year history of the IPL. On Sunday night at Eden Gardens, they capped it off in the most appropriate way possible to blow away Chennai Super Kings by 41 runs in a one-sided final.
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It brought them their second title in three seasons and replicated their first title win in 2013, against the same opponents at the same ground.
They did it by sticking to the formula that has brought them success this season: bat first, make a big total and then bowl to defend it rather than necessarily to bowl sides out.
Sunday night Lendl Simmons and captain Rohit Sharma had laid the foundations of a big total after Chennai skipper MS Dhoni had, surprisingly, put Mumbai in to bat.
The pair have been instrumental through the second half of the season and Simmons’s 68 was his sixth fifty of the season.
Kieron Pollard and Ambati Rayudu provided the flourish that took them beyond 200 and in the box seat for the title.
Once Lasith Malinga and Mitchell McClenaghan throttled Chennai’s start, there was little doubt over the result.
Malinga finished with a flourish in what began as an awful season, by taking three more wickets to be the tournament’s second-highest wicket taker.
“Extremely satisfying,” coach Ricky Ponting said. “I told the boys these have been a special couple of months and that it would be memorable if we capped it off.
“It was stressful after the first six matches. I didn’t have nails left, but we have come back well.
“The way the team has grown, the way our captain has grown, it has been special.
“We played probably our best match in the final.”
osamiuddin@thenational.ae
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