That brings us to the end of the league stage of the IPL. About the 9th or 10th game, I was wondering that we had a mountain to climb, but it has sped past pretty quickly, this season. Abhishek Purohit signing off. Join us for the playoff games later. Cheers

Dwayne Smith is the Man of the Match. Smith: "It was a great privilege to bat with Tendulkar. I have been opening for some time now, it was not new for me. It is good to get some runs, it is crunch time in the tournament now."

Dravid: "162 was not a bad score. We needed early wickets but when batsmen like Smith get going, it is tough. A lot of positives this season. I am going to spend some time at home, I have enjoyed it here. It has been good fun. I will relax and see how life is out of cricket. I will take a call when I have to."

Harbhajan: "We are still trying to figure out who is the best partner for Tendulkar. Gibbs has done well in a few innings, Smith did well today. Our fielding was probably slightly better than what RR did today. We wanted to come out here and give it our best shot, and we did."

Highest opening stand in the IPL this, beating the 159 put on by CSK's Michael Hussey and M Vijay against RCB in 2011. And Rajasthan's record of having never failed to defend 160 and above is broken

Rajasthan began the season with a flurry of wins, but they ended with nine losses, only two less than Deccan Chargers. Too much is made of them punching above their weight, but they have never quite consistently challenged the more powerful sides

Sumon: "What an amazing coincidence that 20 May 2011, Rajasthan beat Mumbai by 10 wickets at home!"

Ramprashad: "CSK's record of reaching the play-off's in all IPL's is still alive and kicking ! Will it ever break?"

18.1

Watson to Smith, 1 wide

and it is over with a wide down the leg side

end of over 187 runs

MI: 162/0CRR: 9.00 • RRR: 0.50

Dwayne Smith87 (58b 10x4 3x6)

Sachin Tendulkar58 (51b 6x4)

Shaun Tait 4-0-40-0

Shane Watson 3-0-16-0

This is the highest opening stand in the IPL now, and probably the most fortuitous one too

17.6

Tait to Smith, 1 run

Tait tries another yorker, Smith scrambles to get it towards mid on

17.5

Tait to Smith, 2 runs

tries the yorker, Smith almost falls over as he sends it through square leg

17.4

Tait to Tendulkar, 1 run

pitched up ball neatly driven with a bit of an open face, mid off stops it with a dive

17.3

Tait to Smith, 1 run

inside edge onto pads, rolls on to the leg side

17.2

Tait to Tendulkar, 1 run

whips a very full one swinging in on middle to midwicket

17.1

Tait to Smith, 1 run

another mistimed stroke as Smith goes hard at this one, falls short of sweeper cover, Tendulkar wanted two, had to turn back, would still have been gone had keeper gathered the throw, if he had

end of over 176 runs

MI: 155/0CRR: 9.11 • RRR: 2.66

Sachin Tendulkar56 (49b 6x4)

Dwayne Smith82 (54b 10x4 3x6)

Shane Watson 3-0-16-0

Siddharth Trivedi 4-0-37-0

16.6

Watson to Tendulkar, FOUR runs

and some response from Tendulkar, he gets forward to a pitched up delivery and times it past sweeper cover

16.5

•

Watson to Tendulkar, no run

Watson still manages to produce a ripper, angled in, pitching around off on a length, and straightens to beat the open face of the bat

16.4

•

Watson to Tendulkar, no run

goes for the yorker, squeezed out from around off to midwicket

16.3

Watson to Smith, 1 run

length ball awkwardly pushed past the non-striker to long on

16.2

•

Watson to Smith, no run

misses the work on the leg side off the pad

16.1

Watson to Tendulkar, 1 run

dabs a wide delivery in the air down to third man

end of over 169 runs

MI: 149/0CRR: 9.31 • RRR: 3.50

Dwayne Smith81 (52b 10x4 3x6)

Sachin Tendulkar51 (45b 5x4)

Siddharth Trivedi 4-0-37-0

Brad Hogg 4-0-30-0

15.6

•

Trivedi to Smith, no run

ducks under a shortish one

15.5

Trivedi to Smith, FOUR runs

Smith sticks to his method, the same shot produced a top edge and a reprieve last ball, this time he wrists it powerfully behind square leg

15.4

Trivedi to Smith, 2 runs

i have lost count of the top-edges today, this is probably the 37th, maybe the 41st, and Rajasthan have put down another catch, can't even call it that, Tait was nowhere near the ball as he dived in vain as it came down

uday: "It has truely been a D-day... Duminy, Dale, Deccan, Dhoni, Dhawal and now Dwanye."

15.3

Trivedi to Tendulkar, 1 run

shuffles a long way across and turns it wide of fine leg

15.2

1lb

Trivedi to Smith, 1 leg bye

worked off the pads square on leg

15.1

Trivedi to Tendulkar, 1 run

drops it close to the stumps, and they take the single by the time the keeper gets to the ball, Tendulkar has a fifty, with Smith going strong at the other end, he's had the space to score a few runs before the eliminator

end of over 1510 runs

MI: 140/0CRR: 9.33 • RRR: 4.60

Sachin Tendulkar49 (43b 5x4)

Dwayne Smith75 (48b 9x4 3x6)

Brad Hogg 4-0-30-0

Shaun Tait 3-0-33-0

14.6

Hogg to Tendulkar, 1 run

worked in front of square from deep in the crease

maxson: "Dravid and Ganguly just underestimated the ability of Stuart Binny and Steve Smith with ball."

Win Probability

MI 100%