Chennai shove Mumbai out

28th May 2008

With the Hyderabad Deccan Chargers unable to register a victory against Chennai Super Kings, Mumbai Indians' scarce hopes for a semi-final berth have been thrashed. The Sachin Tendulkar-led Mumbai team's chances to make it to the knockout phase of the Twenty20 championship depended on Chennai's defeat at the hands of Adam Gilchrist's men.

Now that MS Dhoni and his Super Kings have paved their way effectively to the final leg of the tournament, Mumbai's last game against Bangalore Royal Challengers on Wednesday will not be of much consequence.

The Chennai side has now garnered 16 points and occupies the third spot in the League standings. Whereas Mumbai with 12 points falls at the sixth place with one more league game to go. In the other tie, the verdict between Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab will not have any effect on the standings of the other teams.

The franchise teams of Jaipur, Mohali, Delhi and Chennai have every reason to celebrate as they will now battle it out in the semi-finals of the inaugural IPL.

If Mumbai Indians had been a part of the final four, they would have had home advantage and the crowd's overwhelming support as the semi-finals and finals are scheduled to take place on their home turf in Mumbai.

Incidentally, Mumbai Indians' coach Lalchand Rajput thinks luck played a major part in his team's last three losses, each of which was a penultimate-moment thriller against Kings XI Punjab, Delhi Daredevils and Rajasthan Royals.

"You have seen that however good you play, luck factor comes into play. In the last three games we have had quite close games as we lost either by a run or by one ball. The result could have gone either way but luck was not with us," rued Rajput after his team's defeat against Rajasthan Royals on May 26.

However, he believes that with better fielding his team could have tilted the result in their favour against Shane Warne's Rajasthan Royals. "We could have done better in the fielding area, that is what let us down," he added.

Rajput further insisted that experimenting with different team combinations did not have a major effect on the team's performances overall. "Sometimes, you are lucky sometimes you are not. We will hope to go for a win tomorrow," he said.

Bangalore Royal Challengers will host Mumbai Indians in the second last league match on Wednesday.