Seven weeks or so of a game every day and it comes down to this. A sell-out crowd of 60,000. An estimated television audience of 99 million. A pre-match show featuring Cirque du Soleil and a collection of Bollywood singing and dancing stars. And two teams of 11 cricketers, many of whom had never been in anything anywhere near this big in their lives before. Two men, however, were no strangers to the pressure. The Chennai Super Kings were led by Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who also captained India’s victorious team in last year’s Twenty20 World Cup. And in charge for the Rajasthan Royals, Shane Warne, who with Australia has won just about every cricketing honor that there is to win. All we needed now, was a titanic struggle, and boy did we get one!

Warne won the toss, and elected to field first. The commentary team (whom I was delighted to see were all wearing traditional Indian dress) agreed that this was a smart move on a wicket that looked like it would not produce a high-scoring game. Batting first in Twenty20 is a tricky proposition, because it takes a while to get a sense of how many runs you ought to be making on the wicket. It is way too easy for the side batting first to go for too many runs too quickly, and lose wickets. Besides, the Royals were 8-1 in games in which they batted second.

Chennai, however, put up a fine performance with the bat. Their young Indian batsmen, Patel and Raina, who batted so well yesterday, also did well today. Albie Morkel, who was sent in to accelerate the scoring, failed to come off, and it was left to Dhoni to pile on the runs at the end. That he was unable to do so in his usual, swashbuckling style was down partly to disciplined bowling by the Royals, and partly to a wicket that clearly wasn’t conducive to big hitting. The star with the ball for Rajasthan was Yusuf Pathan, whose gentle off-spin netted him 3-22 while his far more illustrious captain only managed 0-34. By the end of the innings Chennai had mustered 163 runs, which looked to be about par for the pitch.

Graeme Smith damaged a hamstring in the semi-final and was unable to play, so the burden of getting the Royals off to a good start fell to Swapnil Asnodkar. He managed a number of good boundaries, but was quickly out. At the other end Patel and Akmal also fell cheaply. Ntini didn’t take any wickets, but he was very economical and batsmen got themselves out trying to score quickly off the other bowlers. With the Royals on 42-3, the fate of their innings was very much up to Shane Watson and Yusuf Pathan. Fortunately they have also been two of Rajasthan’s best batsmen, and a partnership of 65 got the Royals back on track.

At this point Chennai needed wickets desperately, and Dhoni turned to Muralitharan. There was, of course, nothing that Murali wanted more than to spoil Warne’s party, and he put in a vital performance. He went for a lot of runs, mainly to big hits from Pathan, but he claimed the wickets of Watson and Mohammad Kaif, and could have had Pathan had a difficult catch not been dropped.

Panic is something that Warne and Snape had tried their best to keep out of their team throughout the tournament, but finals are a very different environment, especially for youngsters. Jadeja took a wild swing at his first ball and was out. Pathan ran himself out trying to keep the strike. Now Chennai were very much back in the game. The Royals still needed 21 runs to win, and at the wicket were Warne and Sohail Tanvir. It was going to be down to these two, who just happened to be the two top-performing bowlers in the tournament, to grab the victory. Batsmen, who needs them?

Not that either man was a slouch with the bat. Warne, you may remember, smashed Andrew Symonds all around the park to bring off an unlikely final-over victory for Rajasthan over the Deccan Chargers. And Tanvir was part of a magnificent effort that almost took Pakistan to a miracle victory in the Twenty20 World Cup. As he said after the game, compared to what he had faced then, the Royals target looked easy.

Except that the wicket really wasn’t conducive to big hitting, and the Chennai fielders were covering the ground desperately. The Royals needed 18 off two overs, then 8 off one. Runs came mainly in singles. And with one ball left, the scores were tied.

Tanvir was left with the responsibility of facing the final ball. Dhoni had perhaps gambled too much when he used up his best bowlers before the end, leaving the vital last over to be bowled by the weakest link in his attack, Lakshmipathy Balaji. Given how he’d bowled earlier, Balaji’s last over was pretty good, but while Ntini or Morkel might have been able to prevent a run off one ball, Balaji wasn’t up to it. Tanvir found a gap in the field, he and Warne scampered through for a single, and the Royals had won.

It was, all things considered, a fabulous match. The Super Kings, being without Hayden and Hussey who had got them many of their early wins, played out of their skins. The Royals just about held their nerve. And the crowd absolutely loved it. Nail-biting entertainment like that is what Twenty20 is all about. I’m exhausted, and I can’t wait for next year.

I’ll do a wrap-up on the season in a day or two, but a few final words are necessary now. Firstly, huge congratulations to Shaun Marsh, the top-scoring batsman of the season, and Tanvir, the top bowler. Also to Yusuf Pathan who was Man of the Match, and Shane Watson who was named Man of the Series. Of these, only Tanvir is currently a fixture in his national side. Pathan’s heroics for the Royals have earned him a call-up to the India squad. As for Watson and Marsh, they must be hoping that the Australian selectors were paying a little bit of attention. Congratulations also to all of the young Indian players who did so well in their first time on the big stage.

I’ve also been very impressed with the staging of the tournament. Lalit Modi and his team have done a superb job putting on a major international tournament at very short notice. India has come out of this looking very good indeed.

And finally, as Warnie alluded to in his acceptance speech, this is a very proud moment for the city of Jaipur. Sporting victories can never make up for personal tragedy, but perhaps the performance of the Royals will have brought a small amount of joy into the lives of those people who lost friends and loved ones in the terrorist bombings last month. People of Jaipur, this one is for you.

And now, dear readers, you hopefully know why I have a habit of referring to Shane Warne as “god”. Cricketers don’t come any better. Did I mention that he’s from Melbourne?