Rajasthan Royals skipper Rahul Dravid experienced a mixture of emotions after their loss to the Mumbai Indians in Qualifier 2 of IPL-6 at the Eden Gardens here on Friday. While disappointed at missing out on the final, the former India captain said he was happy that the uneasy situation he was in since the spot-fixing row broke out was over for him in some way.
“Luckily we had a good spirit in the team. While it was a challenge, I am happy to get over it in some ways. You plan for failures, disappointments but this was something unique. Things will never be the same again and it will take some time to get over with,” Dravid said at the post-match press conference here.
The match went down to the wire with Mumbai winning on the penultimate ball of their innings as the Royals gave some nervy moments to their opponents towards the end.
“It’s always disappointing when you lose a game but it was a close one. It was one of those which could have gone either way. Unfortunately, we ended up on the losing side. That’s disappointing, but all the boys in the team can be really proud of the way we fought today as well as the whole campaign,” he said,
Mumbai, chasing 166, began spiritedly with openers Dwayne Smith and Aditya Tare raising a 71-run stand. Even as Smith completed his half-cenutry in 38 balls, it was his 50 run stand off 29 balls with Dinesh Karthik which all but took the game away from the Royals.
At just the wrong time, however, Mumbai lost one wicket each including that of Smith in the four overs from the 14th onwards reducing them to 143/5 in the 18th from a comfortable 121/1.
With 23 needed off the last 12 balls, the Mumbai tail, led by Ambati Rayudu (17 off 13) showed maturity to seal their place in the final.
“It turned out be a pretty close game. We could have finished the match with a couple of overs to spare if we had batted a little more cleverly, but that’s how the game is. The good thing is that we chased very well and didn’t panic at any stage, except maybe in the last couple of overs where we had to get couple of biggies,” said Karthik after the match.