Another knife edge game in the IPL today. The result was largely irrelevant to the Royals, save that they wanted to keep their 100% home record and their momentum going into the finals. No Graeme Smith in the line-up today, but hopefully he was just resting. Mumbai, on the other hand, were desperate for a win to keep their hopes alive.

Warne won the toss and elected to field. The wicket proved difficult to score on, and the Rajasthan bowlers did a good job of restricting Jayasuriya and Tendulkar. Pollock went first ball again, which did his team no favors at all. It should have been an easy game, except that Shane Watson leaked 25 runs in the final over. I thought at the time it might cost us the game.

The Royals innings followed a similar pattern with none of the batsmen able to stamp their authority on the game. Consequently, when it came down to the final overs, the scores were pretty much level. Rajasthan needed 32 to win off the last 12 balls, and the fate of the team lay in the hands of two largely unknown Indian batsmen, Niraj Patel and 19-year-old Ravindra Jadeja. This, I suspect, was just what Warne and Snape wanted – a baptism of fire for their less-famous players in a match that didn’t count. One team or the other would crack under the pressure, and in the end it was Mumbai. With the Royals needing 3 to win off the last ball, Fernando first bowled a wide, and then was party, with Jayasuriya, to some panicked fielding that allowed the Royals batsmen to scamper through for 2 runs to win the game.

This, ultimately, is what Twenty20 is all about: pressure. Mumbai have lost three close games on the trot. They ought to be in the semi-finals, but they threw all three games away because they cracked in the final overs. The Royals, meanwhile, cruise serenely on, and every close game that they win reinforces the positive message that their captain and coaches have been trying to instill. Now they have proved to themselves that they can win even when their big guns don’t fire. It is very impressive.