May 31: For 37 minutes, each and every Kings XI Punjab player, official, owner and fan had his or her heart in the mouth.
Chasing a mammoth target of 227, Suresh Raina batted like a man possessed, and virtually every ball he touched raced to the boundary or over it.
In 25 balls, he whacked 87 runs, helping Chennai Super Kings score 100 for two in six overs.
The neutral Mumbai crowd was up on its feet, basking in the awesomeness of Raina's knock and Virender Sehwag's preceding ton.
None of the Kings XI pacers – Mitchell Johnson, Sandeep Sharma and Parvinder Awana – was spared as Raina pulled, flicked and lofted his way to 12 boundaries and six sixes.
Thanks to his assault, Chennai scored 9, 18, 9, 20, 11 and 33 in the first six overs.
But off the first ball after the Powerplay, Punjab captain George Bailey took matters into his own hands.
A slight bit of hesitation from Brendon McCullum and Raina allowed him enough time to pick up the ball in his left hand at cover, swivel, change hands and throw down the stumps with a direct hit at the striker's end.
A diving Raina couldn't make it.
Punjab were back in the hunt. And they stayed there by exerting even further pressure through their fielding.
The pressure paid off as none of Chennai's four overseas batsmen could support Raina's knock. In the end, the task was too big even for the amazing finishing talents of Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
He tried his luck, was even bowled off a no-ball by Johnson, but couldn't pull it off. Punjab won by 24 runs to make their first IPL final, and set up a rematch with Kolkata Knight Riders who beat them in the first Qualifier on Wednesday.
Of course, the pressure of a mountain of runs also contributed to Chennai's downfall, and for that, Punjab had to thank Virender Sehwag.
The legend rolled back the years to hit just the second century of this IPL, and put up crucial partnerships with Manan Vohra (110 for the first wicket), and David Miller (63 for the third wicket).
Glenn Maxwell failed to set the Wankhede Stadium alight, hitting just one six in an intriguing minibattle with Ashwin but falling to a top-spinner off the very next ball. Till Sehwag was dismissed off the first ball of the penultimate over, Punjab were looking invincible.
The fact that they scored just 15 off the last 11 deliveries could've hurt them on the flattest of tracks at this small ground.
But thanks to Bailey and that run-out of Raina, they were able to hold on and stay in the hunt for their maiden IPL title.
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