Mumbai Indians Wins Champions League 2011

Chennai: Mumbai Indians beat Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Champions League T-20 final today played in MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chepauk, Chennai. MI won by 31 runs. Earlier, Mumbai Indians won the toss and its skipper Harbhajan Singh elected to bat first. But his decision to bat first seems wrong when Bangalore restricted MI on a total of just 139. Bangalore’s sharp bowling attack kept a tight leash on MI batsmen during the middle overs which restricted MI on a low total.

It was the James Franklin who hit an useful inning of 41 runs which gave the Mumbai Indians’ total a semblance of respectability.

On the other hand, a combined effort of bowlers of MI restricted Bangalore on just 108 runs with 4 balls left of the innings.

Mumbai skipper Harbhajan Singh bagged the “Man of the match trophy” with 3 wickets. After the victory, he said,

“I would like to thank my team mates. They were outstanding. It was just a matter of getting Gayle, Dilshan and Virat Kohli. Once we got them out we knew we were right in the game. The boys were fantastic. We had that belief we could defend any kind of total. Obviously Lasith has been great, not just for Mumbai Indians. It’s a great pleasure to have a guy like him in our team who can win games from nowhere. Franklin played fantastically as well.“

While the losing captain, Daniel Vettori said,

“I thought we managed to pull it back well after Franklin put on some runs in the middle stages. We thought it would be a tough but gettable score. We got a great start but everything went pear-shaped. We knew it was going to be vastly different to the wicket we’ve played on and Mumbai bowled exceptionally well. Making a final, we’re always proud of that. After making the IPL final we wanted to go one step further but it wasn’t to be. We’ve come unstuck at this wicket here. That’s something we’re going to have to learn from. We’ve got a very good side and guys like Chris Gayle, Dilshan and Kohli had amazing tournaments. It’s because of those guys that we’re here.“

League Summary:

Man of the series: Lasith Malinga
Golden wicket: Lasith Malinga
Golden bat: David Warner
Maximum 6 awards: James Franklin