Mumbai Indians, the team who made all the mistakes in the FINAL

Mumbai Indians is the team that has shone since their first match in IPL3. They made no mistakes in their games, or if any, they were hardly big enough to cause them a game.

Players like Pollard and Tiwari came in the middle order and batted like there was no tomorrow when the upper order could not do much to bump the run rate. Sachin, the master of the game, proved to every critic, that age is not stopping him, he played an unforgettable inning in almost every match retaining the orange cap till the final.

Players like Rayudu came from no where and performed whenever needed. The team that was labeled to be a one man’s show, proved everyone wrong till Rayudu, Tiwari and Pollard shone with the bat and played innings that were not backed by Sachin at times.

Mumbai Inidans never lost their number one spot on the table. With 10 wins out of 14 and a NRR of +1.084, they were the favorites. The second best team was Deccan, with 8 wins and the rest four with seven wins each. It was suppose to be Mumbai’s cup all along. The consistency should have spoken. They should have proved that that’s all that matters.

But on the day of the final, everything went wrong. From dropped catches, to misfields, to losing wickets. Nothing worked. All blunders, all mistakes, happened right on the day which mattered the most. How do you drop Raina twice, then make him get a 50 in 24 balls? How do you give 100 runs in the last 8 overs?

How can none of the batsmen support the injured Sachin Tendulkar who still hits 48 off 45 (his slowest in IPL3)? How can you misfield and let the ball go off the boundary? How do you not know how to run between the wickets when you are already 6 down? How do you do all that after those amazing 10 wins and surpassing every team by leaps and bounds.

Sachin just has been unlucky. Whether he is part of the Indian team or the Mumbai Indians, the dream of the cup just never comes true. The master is never paid his dues. I did want Chennai to win. For Dhoni, for his amazing captaincy, and for Chennai’s consistency over the past 3 IPLs which included making it to the semi final every time and the final twice. But Sachin Tendulkar’s sad face just made it all sour, Chennai’s victory not as enchanting, the man has done more than anyone has, and his time needed to do it for him.

So Mumbai Indians had an amazing IPL 2010, but they couldn’t do what they did for 6 weeks, play like champions, right when it was most needed.