The Mumbai Indians scored 165/7 from their 20 overs and restricted the Chennai Super Kings to 146/7. Tendulkar’s form has been on the rise and he capitalized on that playing the sheet anchor role to perfection, as he came to terms with the pace of the Newlands wicket quicker than his teammates. However, when the Super Kings came to bat, they found Sri Lankan fast bowler Lasith Malinga in superb form for the Mumbai Indians as his four overs cost just 15 runs, strangling the life out of MS Dhoni’s team.

It was a remarkable recovery for Malinga, who only recently returned to cricket this February after almost a year out of the game with a knee injury. His knee was cured by a Dr Eliyantha White, a homeopathic doctor of sorts who, said Malinga at the time, “works with supernatural powers and herbs".

Not even a late change of his bat with three balls remaining could help Dhoni snatch an unlikely win for the Chennai Super Kings as he was bowled for 36 by Malinga in the final over. The Super Kings lost Parthiv Patel

in the second ball of their innings for a duck as he edged Malinga to Tendulkar at slip. After Suresh Raina had gone cheaply for 8, Matthew Hayden and Andrew Flintoff steadied the Chennai Super Kings and put them on track to reach the Mumbai Indians score. But when Hayden and Flintoff fell in the 10th and 13th overs for 24 and 44 respectively, the Chennai Super Kings were always behind the asking rate.

Earlier, Dhoni had won the first toss of Season 2009 at the DLF Indian Premier League in South Africa and opted for his team to field after looking at the overcast conditions, which had swept into Cape Town over the past few days. The Mumbai Indians did not have the smoothest of starts in their innings, as a three-nation opening attack, consisting of India’s Manpreet Gony, Sri Lanka’s Thilan Thushara and England’s Flintoff served up six tight overs, which cost just 40 runs and saw the fall of the Mumbai Indians’ Sri Lankan opener Sanath Jayasuriya, caught at mid-wicket by Hayden off Thushara.

Kings celeberateShikar Dahwan scored a ball-a-run 22, before the Mumbai Indians middle order suffered a collapse. JP Duminy, who had flown in early this morning after playing for South Africa against Australia in Johannesburg on Friday night, was caught and bowled by Gony for 9, and Dwayne Brave went for 5 before Abhishek Nayar took a liking to the bowling of Flintoff and walloped him for three sixes in the 18th over, the first of Season 2009 at the DLF IPL in South Africa. Together with his captain Tendulkar, Abhishek lifted the Mumbai Indians to a respectable total which the Chennai Super Kings could not reach.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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