Through some quirk of the scheduling gods, the final regular season match of the IPL was between the two teams most likely to contest the final. Being two games clear, the Royals could not fail to finish on top of the table. They therefore elected to rest a number of key players: Warne, Smith, Asnodkar and Tanvir. The Kings XI, on the other hand, were determined to prove a point in advance of the playoffs. Stand-in captain Shane Watson won the toss and elected to field, and right from the beginning the Royals were up against it. Shaun Marsh led the charge with a magnificent 115 that saw him claim the trophy for the most runs in the regular season, despite having only played 10 matches. He’s averaging over 74. This kid has got to be in the running for the Australian one-day squad.

Yuvraj was also in fine form. Once he got wound up it was big-hitting all the way. At one point he had scored 31 runs off six consecutive balls, though that was spread over 3 overs from different bowlers. He was also on 49 off 16 balls and looking good to set the fastest 50 of the tournament. However, they were in the last over, and he got himself run out off the next ball trying too hard for extra runs.

The Royals made a decent fist of the run chase, but without Smith and Asnodkar to get them off to a good start they were always behind the asking rate. Irfan Pathan was the hero with the ball for Punjab, conceding only 10 runs off his four overs, and taking the valuable wicket of Younis Khan. In the end, a target of 222 was way too much, but the second-string Royals team did manage 180, a score that was beyond many of the teams in the tournament. Yuvraj will be pleased to have beaten his main rivals, but Warne and Snape will doubtless be pointing out to their men that they almost won with one hand tied behind their backs. It remains to be seen which psychological ploy worked the best.