New Delhi: The Champions League Twenty20 (CLT20), the grand stage of Twenty20 cricket for world's elite clubs, will start on September 10 with a Group-B clash between Sachin Tendulkar's Mumbai Indians (MI) and Alviro Petersen's Highveld Lions at the Wanderers in Johannesburg.
Mumbai Indians qualified for the Champions League by virtue of being the runners-up in IPL-3. They lost to the champions Chennai Super Kings in the final. Though MI lost, they were by far the best team in the tournament and won a staggering 10 of their 14 league games. Continue reading below
Mumbai Indians' skipper Sachin Tendulkar was the highest scorer in the tournament with 618 runs and was the best batsman in the format he chose not to play for India to allow more and more deserving players a gateway into the Indian team.
The team had a strong start after defending a total of 212 against the Rajasthan Royals in their first match and went on to beat Delhi Daredevils defending another 218. Throughout the tournament, MI was in top form and young players like Saurabh Tiwary and Ambati Rayudu played a stellar role in supporting Sachin Tendulkar.
Mumbai Indians crumbled to the Royal Challengers Bangalore for their first loss in 3 games. In their next game, they restricted the Kolkata Knight Riders to a meager 155. The Mumbai team chased it down with ease, as Sachin Tendulkar scored a blazing 71 off 48 balls.
They continued their winning streak against the defending champions, Deccan Chargers, with all-round performance from Harbhajan Singh, who first took 3-31 and then took the team out of the woods to win with an amazing knock of 49 runs from just 18 balls. They next beat Kings XI Punjab by 4 wickets, courtesy Shikhar Dhawan, Saurabh Tiwary and Rajagopal Sathish.
Sachin's boys made little work of Shane Warne-led Rajasthan Royals to become the first team in IPL 2010 to qualify for semifinals. In their 12th game, they defeated Delhi Daredevils and remained at top of the table with 18 points.
Mumbai's amazing performance in the tournament was mainly due to the emergence of little-known players like Tiwary and Rayudu who made a strong case that they are ready to don national colours. They were also helped by consistent performance of the West Indies' all-rounders Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard, who will surely play an important part in upcoming Champions League Twenty20 tournament.
The bowling line-up was held together by Lasith Malinga, Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh. They bowled some match-winning spells to help Mumbai scale top of the leaderboard.
With solidity and stability in Mumbai Indians' lineup, they will surely be the team to beat and present a strong Indian challenge in the Champions League.
