Bangalore seemed to have looked good when after fielding first, they bowled well to reduce the opposition to a paltry 139. However, after they got a decent start from Chris Gayle and T Dilshan, they failed to get going in the middle order on a rather slow, turning track and went down in a hurry.

Mumbai’s spinners bowled rather well, with Harbhajan Singh ending with 3/20 and Y Chahal picking up 2/9 in his three overs to ensure that the Bangalore team were never in hunt after the initial loss.

Earlier, the Mumbai Indians doled away wickets to run-outs, and after they had been rescued by James Franklin in the middle overs, failed to build on. From 105/3 they collapsed to 109/7 and in the end, they were helped to 139 by Lasith Malinga.

This was done because of their injury issues, which meant that they were left with only seven Indian players left. The decision had led to a lot of controversy.

However, more controversy followed when it was revealed that the one Indian player who was said to be injured for the CLT20, was playing in an under-22 game for the Mumbai side.

After having a look at the case, the CLT20 council has decided to revoke the five foreign members allowed and the Mumbai Indians will now have to choose between their foreign players.

Bangalore have had a good couple of last games. They easily routed Somerset thanks to the batting of Chris Gayle and then chased down 215 after the pair of Dilshan and Kohli exploded rather well.

On the other hand, the Blues have been more consistent. They started with the loss to Cobras but have gathered steam rather well after that. they beat the Trinidad and Tobago side, then overcame the Mumbai Indians before seeing the end of the Chennai Super Kings in the last game thanks to a century from Dave Warner.

Interestingly, they will be playing for the first time in Bangalore which will be a difficult task given the easy paced wicket. How the Blues bowlers adjust to the pitch will go a long way in deciding the first finalist in the tournament.

On the other hand, if Warriors lose, they could still have an outside chance, but a lot will depend on the other game that will be played on the day.

The Warriors had started off with two wins from two games and were looking good to become the first team to go through to the semi finals. However, they lost their game to the Kolkata Knight Riders, which also took a bit of their net run-rate down with that.

On the contrary, Somerset began with two wins in the qualifying and one in the main series. However, after that, it was followed by the abandoned game against the South Australia side which meant that they had three points from two games.

However, the heavy loss to Bangalore meant that the team has to win this against the Warriors.

The Super Kings, who had gone into the game against Trinidad and Tobago with one loss and one win, needed to win this game to keep their hopes alive. However, they failed to chase down a moderate target, which was made difficult by the slow nature of the pitch.

Now, as things stand, Chennai will need to wait for the result between Cobras and TT before they know their fate – if Cobras win, the Super Kings will be out of the tournament, but if TT win, then Chennai will need to beat the Blues by a huge margin to qualify for the semi-final.

However, if they win the game, then the Knight Riders will be left with two wins from four games and the Warriors will have two from three. It will mean that they will have to wait for the results from the other sides to ensure that they can go through to the CLT20 knockouts.

The Kolkata Knight Riders will look to ensure that they can get going with the batting, which had been their bane. The last game finally saw Gambhir and Kallis get going and they will hope for the same from them. Warriors will depend on their pace bowlers and Johan Botha to stall the opposition.

Harbhajan had a poor series against England, which he barely got a couple of wickets and averaged 160 with the ball. He had to later drop out of the series because of a stomach injury.

The selectors have also named Varun Aaron in the squad along with the Karnataka and Royal Challengers Bangalore medium-pace bowler, Sreenath Aravind. Aravind will look to ensure that he can get a place in the side, which already has five medium pacers, including Varun Aaron, Umesh Yadav, Vinay Kumar and Praveen Kumar in a side that is largely inexperienced.

MS Dhoni will continue to lead the side and will have Parthiv Patel as the second wicket-keeper in the side

Batting first, the Kolkata Knight Riders had a good start to their batting thanks to Manvinder Bisla, who batted extremely well to get to 45. He went on to win the man of the match award.

However, once he was dismissed, the rest of the Kolkata side was bowled out for a paltry 121 in the final over. This meant that the opposition needed 122 to win and at 60 for one in nine overs, they seemed to have wrapped the game up.

Unfortunately for the Aces, there was a middle order collapse brought about by the Kolkata spinners. Pathan took 2 wickets while Bhatia bowled his four overs for 14 runs and got one.

Kolkata take on Somerset in their next game.

Gambhir’s concussion was a serious enough injury and it should be the board’s prerogative to decide on who should be allowed to play in the domestic tournament and who should not be allowed to play – given that the players have signed the contract with the board.

Thus, it means that even if Gambhir is less than fully fit, and he decides to play on, the BCCI will not interfere in the matter and it will mean that the side will be looking to get him on board. What happens if then, the player gets injured again and misses the series against England and even the West Indies?

Doesn’t the board have any affinity towards international cricket? Doesn’t it have any kind of duties to protect its own players? Sad state of affairs this is.

So, instead of taking rest at home and trying to get the spin right for the rest of the series in the year including the ones against England at home and the one against West Indies and later against Australia, he has decided to go ahead with the Mumbai Indian games for the CLT20 games.

The time has come where the board takes a strong stance, that is, if the player has missed a series before the CLT20 or the IPL because of an injury, he needs to give the lucrative tournament a miss as well, and rest enough to get the bearings right for the international series.

However, the problem is that the BCCI will never be doing such a thing to annoy the money churning franchises. Because it is not the international results but the money that BCCI only worries about!