The winner of this match would be the league toppers, and the teams involved looked likely semi-finalists. The stage was thus set for an explosive encounter.
On a hard, dry pitch, Adam Gilchrist won the toss and expectedly elected to bat. Both teams had one change each - Dwayne Smith came in for Scott Styrish for Hyderabad, while Rohan Raje made way for Dhwawal Kulkarni for Mumbai.
Gilchrist and Gibbs started in typical fashion, with boundaries and sixes coming thick and fast. Gilchrist got out after a quickfire 35, but the openers had done their job with a stand of 63 in 6.5 overs.
Dwayne Smith came out at number 3, playing in his first game of the tournament, and started his inning straight away with a four off Dwayne Bravo and a six off Jayasuriya. Smith too got out but Hyderabad were sitting pretty at 124 for 2 in 12.5 overs. That's when things started to change for them though. Mumbai suddenly started bowling with accuracy, and Hyderabad started losing wickets . Gibbs was holding the innings at one end with a fluent half century.He was run-out,when he was called for a second run by Venugopal Rao, who then suddenly decided that a mid-pitch chat was a good idea and stopped halfway down to send Gibbs back.
Earlier, Dwayne Bravo bowled a crucial over when he got Rohit Sharma and VVS Laxman out off consecutive balls. Lasith Malinga then finished off the innings with a double wicket maiden to restrict Hyderabad to 168 for 9, while at one stage they had looked good for a total in excess of 185.
Mumbai's innings didn't get off to the best possible start when Jayasuriya skied a pull off purple cap holder RP Singh, but that brought Sachin Tendulkar together with JP Duminy, which was a treat for cricket fans, because it was the closest they would have got to seeing Tendulkar and Lara bat together - with some of Duminy's strokeplay bearing an uncanny resemblance to the West Indian master.
They didn't disappoint, adding 82 runs in 55 balls, before the dreaded strategy break once again broke the rhythm of a set batsman, with Tendulkar falling to the impressive Ojha.
When Ojha bowled Shikhar Dhawan in his next over, the game was wide open, and it came down to winning the next passage of play for either side to win the game. Deccan proved to have the better of Mumbai, with Mumbai's middle order not able to handle the guile of Ojha and the pace of Fidel Edwards. In the search for runs to keep up with the climbing required rate, wickets fell at regular intervals, and Mumbai could never get a grip on the game.
Eventually they fell short by 12 runs, ending on 156 for 7.
Deccan had well and truly completed the transformation from a bottom rung no-hoper to a top of the line, in form team.
Man of the Match: Pragyan Ojha for a finely controlled spell of spin bowling that saw him fetch returns of 4-0-21-3. He controlled the middle overs, got the vital breakthroughs and denied the opposition run scoring opportunities.
Turning Point of the Match: Pragyan Ojha's over after the strategy break, when Tendulkar and Duminy came out looking like they had lost all the rhythm and fluency they displayed before the break. Ojha conceded only 2 runs and got Tendulkar out. From then, Mumbai was always playing catch-up.
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